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AMONG  THE 
GREAT  MASTERS  OF  THE  DRAMA 


AMONG 

THE  GREAT  MASTERS 

By 

Walter  Rowlands 

Among  the  Great  Masters  of  Drama 
Among  the  Great  Masters  of  "Warfare 
Among  the  Great  Masters  of  Literature 
Among  the  Great  Masters  of  Music 
Among  the  Great  Masters  of  Painting 
Among  the  Great  Masters  of  Oratory 

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The  Sonnet 

{Young  Shakespeare  and  zAnne  Hathaway  by  the 

Avon) 

From  painting  by  George  H.  Boughton 


Among  the  Great 

Masters  of  the   Drama 


% 


Scenes  in  the  Lives  of  Famous  Actors 


Thirty- tzvo  Reproductions  of  Famous  Pictures 
with  Text  by 

Walter  Rowlands 


Boston 

Dana  Estes  &  Company 

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Copyright,  igo^ 
By  Dana  Estes  &  Company 

All  rights  reserved 


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.*  *J        V»fOll(5  it^  fcREAT   MASTERS   OF  THE   DRAMA 

•••     •  *•*    •  ''  •  I^olDlished  September,  1903 


•  • 


•  •  • 


•  • 


•.  • 


(iPolontal  $Te00 

Eloctrotypod  and  Printed  by  C.  H.  Slmonds  &  Co. 

Boston,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


2ro  ils  ^^3ter 


M134196 


CONTENTS 


♦ 

FA6B 

Shakespeare i 

MoLi:feRE 8 

Voltaire i6 

Adrienne  Lecouvreur         ....  26 

Garrick '33 

Peg  Woffington 40 

Mrs.  Abington 48 

Mrs.  Siddons 54 

Kemble 63 

Mrs.  Jordan 70 

Talma     .        .        .        .        .        .        .        *  17 

LiSTON 85 

Mademoiselle  Mars 92 

Kean loi 

Macready 109 

Dejazet 119 

Forrest.        .        .        .        ...        .  129 

William  Warren 136 

Charlotte  Cushman 145 

Rachel 152 

RiSTORi 157 


Contents 

PAGE 

Fechter         .......  165 

Jefferson 172 

Salvini  . 178 

Edwin  Booth 184 

John  McCullough 191 

Lawrence  Barrett 196 

Henry  Irving  and  Ellen  Terry      .        .199 

coquelin 207 

Sarah  Bernhardt 213 

MoDjESKA 223 

Adelaide  Neilson        .        o        .        .        .  227 

Mary  Anderson 230 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  Sonnet  

A  Dinner  with  Moli^re  at  Auteuil 
The  Arrest  of  Voltaire  . 
Adrienne  Lecouvreur 
Garrick  and  His  Wife 
Rich  and  Peg  Woffington 
Mrs.  Abington  as  "  Miss  Prue  " 
Mrs.  Siddons  and  Fanny  Kemble 

KeMBLE   as    "  ROLLA  "      . 

Mrs.  Jordan  in  "  The  Country  Girl 
Talma  as  "Titus" 
LiSTON  as  "Paul  Pry" 
Mademoiselle  Mars  as  "  Betty  " 
Edmund  Kean  as  "Richard  III." 
Macready  as  "  Werner  "    . 
Madame    Dejazet    as    the    "  Prince 

CONTi" 

Edwin  Forrest  as  "  Virginius  " 
William  Warren  as  "  Herr  Weigel  " 


PAGE 

Frontispiece 
lo 


DE 


22 

28 

34 
45 
52 
SS 
70 
72 
81 
86 

94 
108 
112 

124 
131 
137 


List  of  Illustrations 


PAGE 


Charlotte  Cushman  as  •'  Meg  Merrilies  "  150 

Rachel 156 

RiSTORI      AS   "  LuCREZIA    BORGIA  "          .           •  163 

Fechter  as  "Hamlet"        ....  i68 

Joseph  Jefferson 176 

Salvini  AS  "Macbeth"  .  .  .  .181 
Edwin  Booth  as  "Richelieu"  .        .        .189 

John  McCullough  as  "Coriolanus"        .  195 

Lawrence  Barrett  as  "  Cassius  "  .  .  195 
Henry    Irving    and     Ellen     Terry     in 

"  Olivia  " 201 

CoQUELiN  as  "Cyrano  de  Bergerac"  .  210 
Sarah    Bernhardt    as     "Adrienne    Le- 

couvREUR 218 

Modjeska  as  "  Rosalind  "  .        .        .        .  225 

Adelaide  Neilson  as  "  Viola  "  .        .        .  229 

Mary  Anderson  as  "  Parthenia  "     .       .  232 


PREFACE 

The  compiler  wishes  to  acknowledge  his 
indebtedness  to  Mr.  Evert  Jansen  Wendell, 
of  New  York,  for  the  loan  of  the  rare  photo- 
graph of  Charlotte  Cushman  as  *'  Meg  Mer- 
rilies,"  used  in  this  book;  also  to  Messrs. 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  for  permission  to 
print  selections  from  the  "Life,  Letters  and 
Journals  of  George  Ticknor,"  and  from 
"  Charlotte  Cushman,"  by  Miss  Emma  Steb- 
bins ;  and  to  Messrs.  Henry  Holt  &  Co.  for 
the  use  of  selections  from  Fanny  Kemble's 
"Records  of  a  Girlhood."  Thanks  are  also 
due  to  Mr.  Lucius  Poole,  of  Boston,  for  kind 
assistance, 


«'A  POOR  player, 
That  struts  and  frets  his  hour  upon  the  stage, 
And  then  is  heard  no  more." 

—  Shakespeare. 

"  Then  to  the  well-trod  stage  anon, 
If  Jonson's  learned  sock  be  on. 
Or  sweetest  Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child. 
Warble  his  native  wood-notes  wild." 

—  Milton. 

"  The  stage  is  a  supplement  to  the  pulpit,  where 
virtue,  according  to  Plato's  subhme  idea,  moves  our 
love  and  affection  when  made  visible  to  the  eye." 

—  Disraeli. 


AMONG  THE  GREAT  MASTERS 
OF  THE  DRAMA 


SHAKESPEARE 

"Shakespeare,  on  whose  forehead  climb 
The  crowns  o'  the  world;  oh,  eyes  sublime, 
With  tears  and  laughter  for  all  time." 

Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 

"To  Shakespeare  the  intellect  of  the  world, 
speaking  in  divers  accents,  applies  with  one  accord 
his  own  words :  *  How  noble  in  reason !  how  infinite 
in  faculty !   in  apprehension  how  like  a  god ! ' " 

Sidney  Lee. 

Oblivion,  which  hides  from  us  so  much 
we  would  fain  know  of  Shakespeare,  has 
covered  up  nearly  all  record  of  him  as  an 
actor. 

I 


2  The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

When  he  arrived  in  London,  after  the 
journey  from  Stratford,  which  he  probably 
made  on  foot,  the  future  great  dramatist 
was  a  young  man  (perhaps  just  of  age) 
with  small  means  and  but  one  friend,  so 
far  as  known  to  us,  in  the  city.  This  was 
Richard  Field,  a  native  of  Stratford,  who 
had  become  a  printer  in  London,  and  some 
years  afterward  (in  1593)  published  Shake- 
speare's "  Venus  and  Adonis."  We  are  not 
informed  what  assistance,  if  any,  the  poet 
received  from  his  fellow  townsman,  al- 
though a  theory,  which  has  gained  but  few 
converts,  has  been  broached  that  he  worked 
at  the  printer's  trade  in  London  for  some 
time  before  becoming  an  actor.  It  is  not  un- 
likely that,  during  his  first  years  in  the  me- 
tropolis, he  earned  his  bread  by  "  very  mean 
employments,"  even,  as  an  old  tradition 
says,  by  holding  horses  at  the  door  of  the 
theatre. 

Another  tradition  asserts  that  his  earliest 


Shakespeare  3 

employment  inside  the  walls  of  a  playhouse 
was  as  call-boy,  from  which-  position  he 
ascended  to  the  playing  of  some  small  parts. 
Rolfe  says :  "  William  Shakespeare,  when 
once  in  the  theatre,  was  where  his  talents 
could  not  fail  to  be  speedily  recognized,  and 
where  his  progress  in  the  work  for  which  he 
was  born  and  fitted  was  assured." 

At  which  of  the  only  two  theatres  (the 
Theatre  or  the  Curtain),  then  existing  in 
London,  Shakespeare  thus  found  occupation, 
we  do  not  know.  It  is  inferred  by  Sidney 
Lee  that,  of  the  several  companies  of  li- 
censed actors  in  London  at  that  time,  he 
originally  joined  the  most  influential  one, 
which  had  been  under  the  nominal  patron- 
age of  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  and  was  after- 
ward the  Lord  Chamberlain's  company. 
"  Documentary  evidence  proves  that  he  was 
a  member  of  it  in  December,  1594;  in  May, 
1603,  he  was  one  of  its  leaders.  Four  of 
its  chief  members  —  Richard  Burbage,  the 


4  The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

greatest  tragic  actor  of  the  day,  John  Hem- 
ing,  Henry  Condell,  and  Augustine  PhilHps 
—  were  among  Shakespeare's  lifelong 
friends.  Under  this  company's  auspices, 
moreover,  Shakespeare's  plays  first  saw  the 
light.  .  .  .  When  Shakespeare  became  a 
member  of  the  company,  it  was  doubtless 
performing  at  the  Theatre,  the  playhouse  in 
Shoreditch  which  James  Burbage,  the  father 
of  the  great  actor,  Richard  Burbage,  had 
constructed  in  1576;  it  abutted  on  the  Fins- 
bury  Fields,  and  stood  outside  the  city's 
boundaries.  The  only  other  London  play- 
house then  in  existence  —  the  Curtain,  in 
Moorfields  —  was  near  at  hand."  The  other 
theatres  identified  with  Shakespeare's  career 
are  the  Rose,  opened  on  the  Bankside, 
Southwark,  in  1592,  "doubtless  the  earliest 
scene  of  Shakespeare's  pronounced  successes 
alike  as  actor  and  dramatist,"  another  new 
playhouse  at  Newington  Butts,  and  the  fa- 
mous Globe  in  Southwark,  built  by  Richard 


Shakespeare  5 

Burbage  in  1599.  From  that  time,  the  last 
named  theatre  was  largely  occupied  by 
Shakespeare's  company,  and  an  important 
share  of  its  profits  fell  to  him.  From  its 
opening  until  his  retirement,  the  Globe  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  only  playhouse  with 
which  the  poet  was  professionally  associated, 
the  Blackfriars  Theatre  not  being  occupied 
by  his  company  until  nearly  the  last  of  his 
acting  days.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt 
that  Shakespeare  accompanied  the  troupe 
with  which  he  was  connected  on  their  pro- 
vincial tours.  His  annual  income  as  an  actor 
is  thought  to  have  been  not  less  than  f  100, 
probably  more,  but  his  work  as  a  dramatist 
was  far  less  remunerative,  yielding  perhaps 
£20  a  year  up  to  1599. 

As  to  the  parts  he  played,  our  information 
is  but  meagre,  though  his  performances  are 
praised.  At  Christmas,  1594,  he  joined  the 
chief  comedian  of  the  day,  William  Kemp, 
and  Richard  Burbage,  in  acting  at  Green- 


6  The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

wich  Palace  before  Queen  Elizabeth,  but  we 
know  not  in  what  plays  or  parts.  "  Shake- 
speare's name  stands  first  on  the  list  of  those 
who  took  part  in  the  original  performances 
of  Ben  Jonson's  '  Every  Man  in  His  Hu- 
mour'  (1598),"  but  the  record  is  silent  as 
to  the  character  allotted  him. 

The  Ghost  in  "  Hamlet "  is  said  to  have 
been  his  finest  assumption,  and  there  is  a 
tradition  that  he  played  the  part  of  Adam 
in  "  As  You  Like  It,"  this  being  based  upon 
the  statement  of  one  of  his  younger  broth- 
ers, presumably  Gilbert,  who  had  often  seen 
him  act  in  London. 

Mr.  Boughton's  charming  picture  of  the 
young  poet  reading  a  sonnet  to  Anne  Hath- 
away, amid  the  May  blossoms  tinting 
Avon's  banks,  — 

"When  daisies  pied,  and  violets  blue, 
And  lady-smocks  all  silver  white, 
And  cuckoo-buds  of  yellow  hue, 
Do  paint  the  meadows  with  delight,"  . 


Shakespeare  7 

is  copied  herein  by  the  kind  permission  of 
its  owner,  Mr.  E.  P.  Bacon,  of  Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin. 

Though  he  was  born  in  England,  near 
Norwich,  in  1834,  America  has  some  right 
to  claim  Mr.  Boughton  hers  by  virtue  of  his 
breeding,  as  his  parents  brought  him  to  this 
country  when  he  was  but  an  infant,  and  here 
he  stayed  until  1859,  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  months  spent  in  England  when  he  was 
about  twenty.  In  the  year  just  named,  the 
young  artist  went  to  Paris,  and  studied  art 
for  a  year  or  two,  finally  removing  to  Lon- 
don, where  he  has  since  lived. 

Plis  brush  has  placed  before  us  many  de- 
lightful works :  episodes  in  Puritan  life  in 
New  England  —  who  does  not  know  his 
"  Return  of  the  Mayflower  ?  "  —  or  among 
the  Dutch  settlers  of  Manhattan,  —  witness 
"  The  Councillors  of  Peter  the  Headstrong," 
—  with  numerous  transcripts  of  peasant  life 
in  Brittany,  or  Holland,  or  old  England. 


8  The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

The  New  York  Public  Library  owns  his 
"  Pilgrims  Going  to  Church,"  and  the  Cor- 
coran Gallery  at  Washington  his  "  Edict  of 
William  the  Testy."  He  was  elected  a 
member  of  the  National  Academy  of  De- 
sign in  1 87 1,  and  has  been  a  Royal  Acade- 
mician since  1896.  His  "  Weeding  the 
Pavement "  is  in  the  Tate  Gallery,  London. 


MOLIERE 

"In  the  literature  of  France,  his  is  the  greatest 
name,  and  in  the  literature  of  the  modern  drama, 
the  greatest  after  that  of   Shakespeare." 

Andrew  Lang. 

Numerous  points  of  likeness  are  to  be 
seen  in  the  lives  of  Shakespeare  and  Moliere, 
and  another  is  visible  if  we  accept  the  theory 
that  the  marriage  of  the  "  Bard  of  Avon  " 
and  "  sweet  Anne  Hathaway "  turned  out 
but  an  unhappy  one.  Anne  was  some  eight 
years  older  than  Shakespeare,  whose  nine- 


Molihe  9 

teenth  birthday  was  still  in  the  future  when 
they  were  wed,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
fickle  Armande  Moliere  could  count  but  half 
her  husband's  age. 

This  disparity  augured  ill  for  their  fu- 
ture, —  a  future  that  was  indeed  a  sad  one 
for  poor  Moliere,  who  once  said,  when  asked 
why  in  some  countries  the  king  became  of 
age  at  fourteen  years  but  could  not  marry 
until  eighteen,  "  Because  it  is  more  difficult 
to  rule  a  wife  than  a  kingdom." 

It  was  partly  for  relief  from  the  disquiet- 
ing influence  of  his  coquettish  wife,  as  well 
as  for  the  benefit  of  his  health,  that  Mpliere 
in  1667,  at  about  the  time  of  the  prohibition 
of  his  "  Tartuffe,"  leased  a  cottage  at  Au- 
teuil.  **  Auteuil  was  then  a  tranquil  village, 
far  away  from  the  town's  turmoil,  and 
brought  near  enough  for  its  dwellers  by  the 
silent  and  swift  river.  Now  it  is  a  bustling 
suburb  of  the  city,   and  the  site  of   Mo- 


lO         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Here's  cottage  and  grounds  is  covered  by 
a  block  of  commonplace  modern  dwellings." 

Here  in  this  pleasant  retreat  the  great 
dramatist  enjoyed  some  ease  with  his 
friends,  as  seen  in  Melingue's  canvas. 

It  is  summer-time,  and  the  wide  glass 
doors  of  the  dining-room  are  open  to  the 
garden.  Moliere  has  assembled  together 
a  quartette  of  brilliant  litterateurs,  —  La 
Fontaine,  the  famous  fabulist;  Boileau, 
critic  and  satirist ;  Racine,  poet  and  drama- 
tist; and,  lastly,  Chapelle,  poet  and  wit, 
who  is  credited  with  the  authorship  of  some 
sparkling  lines  in  the  dramas  of  both  Mo- 
liere and  Racine.  The  author  of  "  Le  Mi- 
santhrope "  is  seated  at  the  extreme  right, 
and  all  are  listening  to  Chapelle,  who  is 
reading  with  animation  from  a  manuscript. 
Judging  from  the  faces  of  his  hearers,  it 
can  hardly  be  one  of  his  own  effusions,  as 
gaiety  and  badinage  are  the  characteristics 
of  his  pleasant  verse, 


c/f  Dinner  with  Moliere  at  zAuteuil 

From  painting  by  Gaston  Melingue 


Molihe  1 1 

Both  dinner  and  dessert  have  been  dis- 
cussed, and  the  servant  —  La  Foret,  the 
one  to  whom  MoHere  was  wont  to  first  read 
his  comedies  —  is  bringing  in  the  coffee. 

An  amusing  story  is  told  of  a  noted  froHc 
which  once  took  place  at  Moliere's  villa. 
Van  Laun  says :  "  Chapelle,  La  Fontaine, 
Lulli,  director  of  the  Royal  Academy  of 
Music,  Boileau,  Mignard,  the  artist,  and 
Corneille,  came  one  evening  to  Auteuil  to 
make  merry  with  their  friend.  Moliere  was 
obliged  to  excuse  himself  on  the  ground  of 
ill  health,  but  he  requested  Chapelle  to  do 
the  honors  of  his  house.  The  guests  sat 
down,  and  presently,  warmed  with  wine, 
they  fell  to  talking  of  religion,  futurity,  the 
vanity  of  human  life,  and  such  other  lofty 
and  inexhaustible  topics  as  are  wont  to  oc- 
cupy the  vinous  moments  of  intellectual 
men.  Chapelle  led  the  conversation,  and 
indulged  in  a  long  tirade  against  the  folly 
of  most  things  counted  wise;  at  length,  one 


12         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

of  them  suggested  the  idea  of  suicide,  and 
proposed  that  they  should  all  go  and  drown 
themselves  in  the  river.  This  splendid  notion 
was  received  with  acclamation;  the  tipsy 
philosophers  hurried  down  to  the  bank,  and 
seized  upon  a  boat  in  order  to  get  into  the 
middle  of  the  stream.  M^'eanwhile,  Baron, 
Moliere's  favorite  pupil,  who  lived  in  the 
house  with  him,  and  who  had  been  present 
at  the  debauch,  aroused  his  master,  and  sent 
off  the  servants  in  quest  of  the  would-be 
suicides.  The  latter  were  already  in  the 
water  when  assistance  arrived,  and  they  were 
pulled  out;  but,  resenting  such  an  imper- 
tinence, they  drew  their  swords  on  their 
deliverers  and  pursued  them  to  Moliere's 
house.  The  poet  displayed  complete  pres- 
ence of  mind,  and  pretended  to  approve  of 
the  plan  which  had  been  formed;  but  he 
professed  to  be  much  annoyed  that  they 
should  have  thought  of  drowning  them- 
selves without  him.     They  admitted  their 


MolUre  13 

error,  and  invited  him  to  come  back  with 
them  and  finish  the  business.  '  Nay,'  said 
Moliere,  *that  would  be  very  clumsy.  So 
glorious  a  deed  should  not  be  done  at  night 
and  in  darkness.  Early  to-morrow,  when 
we  have  all  slept  well,  we  will  go,  fasting 
and  in  public,  and  throw  ourselves  in.'  To 
this  all  assented,  and  Chapelle  proposed  that 
in  the  meantime  they  should  finish  the  wine 
that  had  been  left.  It  need  not  be  added 
that  the  next  day  found  them  in  a  different 
mood." 

The  anecdote  illustrates  Moliere's  ability 
as  an  actor,  and  is  emphasized  by  the  words 
of  Coquelin,  sage  critic  as  well  as  great 
comedian,  in  his  "  Moliere  and  Shake- 
speare." Coquelin  asserts :  "  There  is  no 
doubt  that  his  (Moliere's)  vocation  as  an 
actor  was  his  master-passion.  He  did  not 
leave  the  paternal  roof  for  the  purpose  of 
writing  plays,  but  for  the  purpose  of  acting 
them.     And  we  know  that  these  were  not 


14         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

comedies;  the  Illustrious  Theatre  had  in 
stock  at  first  nothing  but  tragedies.  When 
he  wrote  '  L'Etourdi,'  his  first  work,  Mo- 
liere  had  been  an  actor  for  nine  years,  and 
for  fifteen  when  he  wrote  the  '  Precieuses 
Ridicules/  Never  could  his  great  success 
as  an  author  tempt  him  to  leave  the  boards. 
He  not  only  continued  to  act  in  his  own 
plays,  but  he  acted  in  the  plays  of  others, 
and  did  not  consider  this  as  lost  time.  He 
acted,  as  we  have  said,  although  coughing 
and  spitting  blood;  and  to  Boileau,  who 
advised  him  to  leave  the  stage,  he  replied: 
*  It  is  for  my  honor  that  I  remain,'  so 
much  did  he  love  his  profession,  which  was 
killing  him.  But  then  he  excelled  in  it. 
His  contemporaries  are  unanimous  on  this 
point.  He  was  extraordinary.  'Better  actor 
even  than  author,'  one  of  them  goes  so 
far  as  to  say.  We  can  imagine  what  joy 
it  must  have  been  to  see  him  in  his  great 


Molihe  15 

parts,  —  Sganarelle,   Orgon,  Alceste,  Har- 
pagon/' 

Moliere  reading  a  new  play  to  his  com- 
pany has  served  M.  Melingue,  the  painter  of 
the  dinner  at  Auteuil,  as  the  subject  of  a 
later  picture.  The  artist,  born  at  Paris  in 
1840,  and  taught  his  art  by  his  father  (who 
was  actor,  painter,  and  sculptor)  and  Leon 
Cogniet,  won  for  himself  years  ago  an  as- 
sured place  among  French  painters  of  his- 
toric anecdote.  He  has  painted  "  Edward 
Jenner,"  the  discoverer  of  vaccination, 
"  Hoche  in  1789,"  ''  Catinat  after  the  Bat- 
tle oi  Marsaille,"  "  General  Daumesnil  at 
Vincennes,"  "  Joan  of  Arc  and  Baudri- 
court,"  "  La  Tour  d'Auvergne,"  and  "  Jean 
Bart  at  Versailles." 


1 6         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 


VOLTAIRE 

"Every  form  of  composition  must  be  judged  in 
its  own  order,  and  the  order  in  which  Voltaire 
chose  to  work  was  the  French  classic.  ...  It  is  no 
infidelity  to  the  glorious  and  incomparable  genius 
of  Shakespeare  ...  to  admit  that  there  is  in  these 
limits  of  construction  a  concentration  and  regularity, 
and  in  these  too  contemned  alexandrines  a  just  and 
swelling  cadence,  that  confer  a  high  degree  of  pleas- 
ure of  the  highest  kind."  John   Morley. 

Like  the  two  great  men  of  whom  I  have 
written  in  the  foregoing  chapters,  Voltaire 
was  both  dramatist  and  actor.  We  know 
that  he  enacted,  with  great  acceptance,  the 
part  of  Cicero  in  his  own  tragedy  of  "  Rome 
Sauvee,"  at  Paris,  in  1749,  before  an  audi- 
ence which  included  many  notables,  — 
d'Alembert,  Diderot,  Marmontel,  and  other 
distinguished  writers,  and  again,  later,  be- 
fore the  court  of  Berlin,  where,  with  princes 
and  princesses  as  fellow  actors,  he  also  as- 


Voltaire  1 7 

sumed  the  character  of  Lusignan,  the  aged 
Christian  martyr  in  "  Zaire.'*  "  Yes,"  says 
Carlyle,  "  and  was  manager  and  general 
stage-king  and  contriver,  being  expert  at 
this,  if  at  anything.  .  .  .  Excellent  in  act- 
ing, say  the  witnesses ;  superlative,  for  cer- 
tain, as  Preceptor  of  the  art." 

Some  rather  neat  bits  of  stage  business, 
so  to  say,  may  be  discerned  in  Voltaire's 
conduct  during  the  famous  episode  of  his 
detention  at  Frankfort  by  order  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great,  subsequent  to  the  poet's  last 
interview  with  that  monarch  at  Potsdam 
in  the  March  of  1753. 

Let  us  hear  Carlyle  again :  "  The  essence 
of  the  story  is  briefly  this.  Voltaire,  by  his 
fine  deportment  in  parting  with  Friedrich, 
had  been  allowed  to  retain  his  Decorations, 
his  letter  of  Agreement,  his  Royal  Book 
of  Poesies  (one  of  those  *  Twelve  Copies,' 
printed  au  Donjon  du  Chateau  in  happier 
times !)  —  and,  in  short,  to  go  his  ways  as  a 


1 8         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

friend,  not  as  a  runaway  or  one  dismissed. 
But  now,  by  his  late  procedures  at  Leipzig, 
and  *  firings  out  of  port-holes  '  in  that  man- 
ner, he  had  awakened  Friedrich's  indigna- 
tion again,  —  Friedrich's  regret  at  allowing 
him  to  take  those  articles  with  him;  and 
produced  a  resolution  in  Friedrich  to  have 
them  back.  They  are  not  generally  articles 
of  much  moment;  but  as  marks  of  friend- 
ship they  are  now  all  falsities.  One  of  the 
articles  might  be  of  frightful  importance: 
that  Book  of  Poesies;  thrice-private  CEuvre 
de  Poesies,  in  which  are  satirical  spurts  af- 
fecting more  than  one  crowned  head;  one 
shudders  to  think  what  fires  a  spiteful  Vol- 
taire might  cause  by  publishing  these !  This 
was  Friedrich's  idea ;  —  and  by  no  means  a 
chimerical  one,  as  the  fact  proved;  said 
CEuvre  being  actually  reprinted  upon  him, 
at  Paris,  afterwards  (not  by  Voltaire),  in 
the  crisis  of  the  Seven- Years  War,  to  put 
him  out  with  his  Uncle  of  England,  whom 


Voltaire  i$ 

it  quizzed  in  passages.  *  We  will  have 
those  articles  back,'  thinks  Friedrich;  'that 
(Euvre  most  especially !  No  difficulty ;  wait 
for  him  at  Frankfurt,  as  lie  passes  home ;  de- 
mand them  of  him  there/  And  has  (directly 
on  those  new  *  firings  through  port-holes ' 
at  Leipzig)  bidden  Fredersdorf  take  meas- 
ures accordingly. 

"  Fredersdorf  did  so;  early  in  April  and 
onward  had  his  official  Person  waiting  at 
Frankfurt  (one  Freytag,  our  Prussian  Resi- 
dent there,  very  celebrated  ever  since) ,  vigi- 
lant in  the  extreme  for  Voltaire's  arrival,  — 
and  who  did  not  miss  that  event.  Voltaire, 
arriving  at  last  (May  31st),  did,  with  Frey- 
tag's  hand  laid  gently  on  his  sleeve,  at  once 
give  up  what  of  the  articles  he  had  about 
him;  —  the  CEuvre,  unluckily,  not  one  of 
them;  and  agreed  to  be  under  mild  arrest 
('  Po/role  d'honneur;  in  the  Liorird'Or  Hotel 
here!')  till  said  CEuvre  should  come  up. 
Under  Fredersdorf's  guidance,  all  this,  and 


20         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

what  follows;  King  Friedrich,  after  the 
general  Order  given,  had  nothing  more  to 
do  with  it,  and  was  gone  upon  his  Reviews. 

"  In  the  course  of  two  weeks  or  more  the 
(Euvre  de  Poesie  did  come.  Voltaire  was 
impatient  to  go.  And  he  might  perhaps 
have  at  once  gone,  had  Freytag  been  clearly 
instructed,  so  as  to  know  the  essential  from 
the  unessential  here.  But  he  was  not;  — 
poor  subaltern  Freytag  had  to  say,  on  Vol- 
taire's urgencies :  *  I  will  at  once  report  to 
Berlin;  if  the  answer  be  (as  we  hope),  "  All 
right,"  you  are  at  that  moment  at  liberty !  * 
This  was  a  thing  unexpected,  astonishing  to 
Voltaire;  a  thing  demanding  patience,  si- 
lence: in  three  days  more,  with  silence,  as 
it  turns  out,  it  would  have  been  all  beauti- 
fully over,  —  but  he  was  not  strong  in  those 
qualities ! 

"  Voltaire's  arrest  hitherto  had  been 
merely  on  his  word  of  honor,  *  I  promise, 
on  my  honor,  not  to  go  beyond  the  Garden 


Voltaire  2 1 

of  this  Inn.'  But  he  now,  without  warning 
anybody,  privately  revoked  said  word  of 
honor;  and  Collini  and  he,  next  morning, 
...  —  having  laid  their  plan,  striving  to 
think  it  fair  in  the  circumstances,  —  walk 
out  from  the  Lion  d'Or,  *  Voltaire  in  black 
velvet  coat,'  with  their  valuablest  effects  (La 
Pucelle  and  money-box  included)  ;  leaving 
Madame  Denis  to  wait  the  disimprisonment 
of  CEuzre  de  Poesie,  and  wind  up  the  gen- 
eral business.  Walk  out,  very  gingerly,  — 
duck  into  a  hackney-coach;  and  attempt  to 
escape  by  the  Mainz  Gate!  Freytag's  spy 
runs  breathless  with  the  news;  never  was  a 
Freytag  in  such  taking.  Terrified  Freytag 
has  to  *  throw  on  his  coat ; '  order  out  three 
men  to  gallop  by  various  routes ;  jump  into 
some  Excellency's  coach  (kind  Excellency 
lent  it),  which  is  luckily  standing  yoked 
near  by;  and  shoot  with  the  velocity  of  life 
and  death  towards  Mainz  Gate.  Voltaire, 
whom  the  well-affected   Porter,   suspecting 


22         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

something,  has  rather  been  retarding,  is  still 
there :  *  Arrested,  in  the  King's  name ! '  — 
and  there  is  such  a  scene !  For  Freytag,  too, 
is  now  raging,  ignited  by  such  percussion 
of  the  terrors;  and  speaks,  not  like  what 
they  call  '  a  learned  sergeant,'  but  like  a 
drilled  sergeant  in  heat  of  battle :  Voltaire's 
tongue,  also,  and  Collini's,  —  '  Your  Excel- 
lenz  never  heard  such  brazen-faced  lies 
thrown  on  a  man;  that  I  had  offered,  for 
i,ooo  thalers,  to  let  them  go;  that  I  had  — ' 
In  short,  the  thing  has  caught  fire;  broken 
into  flaming  chaos  come  again. 

"  *  Freytag  (to  give  one  snatch  from  Col- 
lini's side)  got  into  the  carriage  along  with 
us,  and  led  us,  in  this  way,  across  the  mob 
of  people  to  Schmidt's  (to  see  what  was  to 
be  done  with  us).  Sentries  were  put  at  the 
gate  to  keep  out  the  mob;  we  are  led  into 
a  kind  of  counting-room;  clerk,  maid  and 
man-servants  are  about;  Madame  Schmidt 
passes  before  Voltaire  with  a  disdainful  air, 


The  Arrest  of  Voltaire 

From  painting  by  Jules  Girardet 


Voltaire  2$ 

to  listen  to  Freytag,  recounting/  in  the  tone 
not  of  a  learned  sergeant,  what  the  matter 
is.  They  seize  our  effects;  under  violent 
protest,  worse  than  vain.  '  Voltaire  demands 
to  have  at  least  his  snuff-box,  cannot  do 
without  snuff ;  they  answer,  "  It  is  usual  to 
take  everything.".  .  . 

"  *  Not  for  two  hours  had  they  done  with 
their  writings  and  arrangings.  Our  port- 
folios and  cassette  (money-box)  were 
thrown  into  an  empty  trunk  (what  else 
could  they  be  thrown  into?)  — which  was 
locked  with  a  padlock,  and  sealed  with  a 
paper,  Voltaire's  arms  on  the  one  end,  and 
Schmidt's  cipher  on  the  other.  Dorn,  Frey- 
tag's  Clerk,  was  bidden  lead  us  away.  Sign 
of  the  Bouc'  (or  Billy-Goat;  there  hence- 
forth; Lion  d'Or  refusing  to  be  concerned 
with  us  farther)  ;  twelve  soldiers;  Madame 
Denis  with  curtains  of  bayonets, — and  other 
well-known  flagrancies.  .  .  .  The  7th  of 
July,  Voltaire  did  actually  go;   and  then  in 


24        TAe  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

an  extreme  hurry,  —  by  his  own  blame, 
again. 

"  These  final  passages  we  touch  only  in 
the  lump ;  Voltaire's  own  Narrative  of  these 
being  so  copious,  flamingly  impressive,  and 
still  known  to  everybody.  How  much  better 
for  Voltaire  and  us,  had  nobody  ever  known 
it ;  had  it  never  been  written ;  had  the  poor 
hubbub,  no  better  than  a  chance  street-riot, 
all  of  it,  after  amusing  old  Frankfurt  for 
awhile,  been  left  to  drop  into  the  gutters  for- 
ever! To  Voltaire  and  various  others  (me 
and  my  poor  readers  included),  that  was  the 
desirable  thing. 

"  Had  there  but  been,  among  one's  re- 
sources, a  little  patience  and  practical  can- 
dor instead  of  all  that  vituperative  elo- 
quence and  power  of  tragi-comic  descrip- 
tion !  Nay,  in  that  case,  this  wretched  street- 
riot  hubbub  need  not  have  been  at  all.  Truly 
M.  de  Voltaire  had  a  talent  for  speech,  but 
lamentably  wanted  that  of  silence ! " 


Voltaire  2$ 

John  Morley  remarks  that,  "  It  would 
need  the  singer  of  the  battle  of  the  frogs 
and  mice  to  do  justice  to  this  five  weeks' 
tragi-comedy,"  but  M.  Girardet  has  well 
imagined  for  us  one  aspect  of  it,  —  the  ar- 
rest. 

Jules  Girardet,  born  in  Paris  in  1856,  and 
one  of  a  family  of  artists,  has  been  the  re- 
cipient of  numerous  honors.  Among  his 
best  works  may  be  named  "  Episode  in  the 
Siege  of  Saragossa,"  "  The  Rout  of  Cholet, 
1793,"  "  The  Defeated  Army  of  General 
Lescure  Passing  the  Loire,"  and  "  Trying 
on  the  Crown,"  the  last  named  picture  rep- 
resenting an  episode  in  the  life  of  Napoleon 
and  Josephine. 


26         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 


ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR 

"We  saw  in  her,  not  the  actress,  but  the  person- 
age represented."  Colle. 

"A  woman  who  brought  to  the  work  of  her  Hfe 
an  assemblage  of  gifts  as  rare  as  the  poetry  they 
served  to  illustrate."  Frederick  Hawkins. 

Without  doubt  one  of  the  causes  of  Vol- 
taire's hostility  to  the  Church  can  be  found 
in  that  Church's  treatment  of  Adrienne 
Lecouvreur  in  denying  her  Christian 
burial. 

That  the  corpse  of  an  actress  of  genius, 
for  years  the  idol  of  Paris,  one  of  his  warm- 
est friends,  and  the  creator  of  Jocasta  in 
his  ''  CEdipe,"  should,  because  of  her  profes- 
sion, be  consigned  to  unconsecrated  ground, 
aroused  that  vehement  indignation  which 
Voltaire,  to  his  lasting  credit,  always  dis- 
played against  injustice. 

Contrasting  the  hurried  and  forlorn  obse- 
quies of  Adrienne  with  the  stately   fune- 


Adrienne  Lecouvreur  27 

ral  of  the  English  actress,  Anne  Oldfield, 
who,  dying  the  same  year,  was  interred  in 
Westminster  Abbey,  Voltaire  breaks  forth 
thus: 

"  O  London,  happy  land,  where  no  art 
is  despised,  where  every  kind  of  success  has 
its  glory,  where  the  Conqueror  of  Tallard, 
son  of  Victory,  the  sublime  Dryden,  the 
wise  Addison,  the  charming  Oldfield,  and 
the  immortal  Newton,  all  have  their  place 
in  the  Temple  of  Glory." 

In  another  —  less  material  but  lasting  — 
Temple  of  Glory,  however,  set  apart  for 
honoring  those  whose  talents  have  graced 
the  stage,  the  memory  of  Adrienne  Lecou- 
vreur is  preserved  as  that  of  a  great  actress, 
one  of  the  chief  ornaments  of  the  French 
theatre. 

Born  in  1692,  near  Rheims,  this  daugh- 
ter of  a  hat-maker  of  Paris  was,  at  an  early 
age,  distinguished  as  a  reciter  of  poetry, 
and  at  fifteen  became  connected  with  a  troupe 


28         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

of  young  amateurs.  Her  performances  at- 
tracted so  much  attention  that  steps  were 
taken  to  fully  educate  and  develop  her  re- 
markable histrionic  gifts.  She  made  her 
debut  in  the  provinces,  and  did  not  appear 
in  Paris  until  171 7,  when  she  performed 
Electra  in  Crebillon's  tragedy  of  that  name, 
at  the  Comedie  Frangaise.  Her  career,  after 
this,  was  a  succession  of  successes,  especially 
in  the  leading  parts  of  the  tragedies  of  Ra- 
cine and  Corneille. 

It  is  as  Cornelia  in  Corneille's  tragedy 
of  the  "  Death  of  Pompey "  that  Coypel 
has  painted  her  in  the  picture  here  repro- 
duced. 

Adrienne's  name  inevitably  recalls  that  of 
her  lover  Maurice  de  Saxe,  the  soldier  son 
of  Augustus  the  Strong  and  the  lovely  Au- 
rora von  Konigsmark,  whose  association 
with  the  actress  has  been  made  familiar  to 
the  world  by  Scribe's  popular  play,  entitled 


Adrienne  Le  Couvreur 

From  painting  by  Charles  Coypel 


Adrienne  Lecouvreur  29 

"  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,"  first  produced  at 
the  theatre  where  she  reigned,  in  1849. 

Although  the  death  of  Adrienne  was  not 
caused  by  poison  sent  to  the  actress  by  her 
rival,  the  Princesse  de  Bouillon,  as  told 
in  Scribe's  drama,  it  was,  nevertheless,  a 
sudden  and  a  sad  one.  Dying  at  thirty- 
seven,  the  great  tragedienne  knew  that  Saxe, 
on  whom  she  had  bestowed  literally  a  for- 
tune, to  aid  him  in  prosecuting  his  claim 
to  the  Duchy  of  Courland,  was  false  to 
her.  She  died  in  Voltaire's  arms,  with 
her  eyes  fixed,  it  is  said,  on  the  bust  of 
Saxe. 

In  Scribe^s  play,  it  is  Maurice  de  Saxe 
and  the  faithful  old  manager,  Michonnet, 
who  witness  alone  the  passing  from  earth  of 
poor  Adrienne.  The  last  scene  of  the  last 
act  is  here  quoted: 


30         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

"SCENE  V. 
Maurice,  Adrienne,  Michonnet 

michonnet 

Is  it  true  what  they  tell  me?  Is  Adrienne  in 
danger? 

MAURICE 

Adrienne  is  dying. 

MICHONNET 

No,  no,  she  still  breathes!  All  hope  is  not  yet 
lost. 

MAURICE 

She  opens  her  eyes! 

ADRIENNE 

Oh,  what  suffering!  Who  is  near  me?  Maurice, 
and  you,  also,  Michonnet.  As  soon  as  I  suffer,  you 
come.  It  is  no  longer  my  head,  but  my  chest  that 
is  burning;  it  is  like  a  fire,  —  like  a  devouring  fire 
that  consumes  me. 

MICHONNET 

All  this  proves  —  do  you  not  see,  as  I  do,  the 
traces  of  poison,  —  a  quick  and  terrible  poison? 


Adrienne  Lecouvreur  31 

MAURICE 

What,  you  have  suspicions! 

MICHONNET 

I  suspect  all  the  world  —  and  this  rival  —  this 
grand  lady! 

MAURICE 

Hold!    Hold! 

ADRIENNE 

Ah!  The  pain  increases.  You  who  love  me  so, 
save  me,  save  me!  I  do  not  wish  to  die!  A  little 
while  ago  I  could  have  begged  for  death  —  I  was 
so  unhappy  —  but  now  I  do  not  wish  to  die  —  he 
loves  me  —  he  has  called  me  his  wife! 

MICHONNET 

His  wife! 

ADRIENNE 

My  God,  listen  to  me!  Let  me  live  —  a  few  days 
—  a  few  days  near  him  —  I  am  so  young,  and  life 
looks  so  beautiful  to  me  now. 

MAURICE 

This  is  frightful! 


32         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

ADRIENNE 

Life!  Life!  vain  efforts,  vain  prayers!  My  days 
are  numbered.  I  feel  the  power  of  existence  escap- 
ing. Do  not  leave  me,  Maurice  —  very  soon  my  eyes 
will  see  you  no  longer  —  my  hand  will  not  be  able 
to  press  yours. 

MAURICE 

Adrienne !     Adrienne ! 

ADRIENNE 

Oh,  triumphs  of  the  theatre!  my  heart  beats  no 
more  with  your  ardent  emotions  —  and  you,  studies 
of  the  art  I  loved  so  much,  —  nothing  will  remain  of 
you  after  I  am  gone.  Nothing  lives  of  us  after 
our  death  —  nothing  but  the  memory  —  you  will 
not  forget  me.  Adieu,  Maurice!  adieu,  my  two 
friends ! 

MICHONNET 

Dead!    Dead! 

MAURICE 

O  noble  and  generous  girl !  if  ever  the  least  glory 
shall  be  my  lot,  it  is  to  you  I  will  render  homage; 


Garrick  33 

and  ever  united  —  even  after  death  —  the  name  of 
Maurice  de  Saxe  shall  never  be  separated  from  that 
of  Adrienne." 

Charles  Antoine  Coypel,  one  of  a  family 
of  artists,  was  born  in  Paris  in  1694,  and 
died  there  in  1752.  Although  he  painted 
subjects  from  history  and  from  more  famil- 
iar scenes,  his  best  works  were  his  portraits. 

GARRICK 

"If  powers  of  acting  vast  and  unconfined; 

If  fewest  faults  with  greatest  beauties  join'd; 

If  strong  expression,  and  strange  powers  which  lie 

Within  the  magic  circle  of  the  eye ; 

If  feelings  which  few  hearts,  like  his,  can  know, 

And  which  no  face  so  well  as  his  can  show. 

Deserve  the  preference ;  —  Garrick !    take  the  chair, 

Nor  quit  it  —  till  thou  place  an  equal  there." 

Churchill. 

Hogarth  painted  his  good  friend  Gar- 
rick on  several  occasions.  His  best  known 
picture  of  the  actor,  a  large  canvas  produced 
in  1746,  represents  him  as  Richard  III. 


34         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

The  portrait  here  given  of  Garrick  and 
his  wife  shows  him  as  a  writer,  and  was 
painted  in  1757,  about  eight  years  after 
their  marriage,  and  an  equal  time  before 
the  death  of  Hogarth,  for  whose  monument 
in  Chiswick  Churchyard  Garrick  composed 
the  epitaph. 

In  this  picture  the  manuscript  of  his  pro- 
logue to  Foote's  comedy  of  "  Taste "  lies 
before  Garrick,  who  is  attired  in  a  blue 
coat,  embroidered  with  gold,  and  a  rose  in 
his  buttonhole.  He  appears  to  be  speaking 
aloud,  as  if  reciting  the  prologue  on  the 
stage,  and  is  unconscious  of  the  cautious 
approach  of  his  wife,  who  reaches  out  her 
hand  to  take  the  pen  from  him.  She  wears 
a  pink  dress  with  a  white  fichu  and  lace 
sleeves,  flowers  in  her  unpowdered  hair, 
and  on  her  left  wrist  a  pearl  bracelet,  which 
bears,  set  in  diamonds,  a  miniature  portrait 
of  a  lady,  probably  that  of  the  Empress 
Maria  Theresa,  who  had  been  her  friend  in 


Garrick  and  His  Wife ' 

From  painting  By  William  Hogarth 


Garrick  35 

Vienna,  where,  under  the  name  of  Eva 
Maria  Violette,  she  was  a  celebrated  dancer. 

Mile.  Violette  came  to  London  when 
she  was  about  twenty  years  old,  and  by 
her  dancing  at  the  Haymarket  instantly 
won  success,  and  became  the  reigning  queen 
of  the  art  in  England.  Several  romantic 
stories  are  told  as  to  her  origin  and  early 
life,  but  the  real  facts  are  unknown.  At 
all  events,  she  was  befriended  in  England 
by  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Burlington, 
who  made  her  a  handsome  settlement  on 
her  marriage  with  Garrick,  which  took  place 
in  1749,  and  turned  out  most  happily.  From 
the  time  of  their  union  until  the  actor's 
death,  a  period  of  nearly  thirty  years,  they 
were  never  apart  twenty-four  hours,  and 
for  many  years  after  Garrick's  demise,  his 
widow  would  not  allow  the  room  in  which 
he  died  to  be  opened. 

Many  tributes  to  her  charms  of  mind  and 
person  are  extant.     Garrick's  verse  asserts: 


36         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

"'Tis  not,  my  friend,  her  speaking  face, 
Her  shape,  her  youth,  her  winning  grace, 
Have  reached  my  heart,  the  fair  one's  mind, 
Quick  as  her  eyes,  yet  soft  and  kind. 
A  gaiety  with  innocence; 
A  soft  address  with  manly  sense, 
Ravishing  manners,  void  of  art, 
A  cheerful,  firm,  yet  feeling  heart. 
Beauty  that  charms  all  public  gaze. 
And  humble  amid  pomp  and  praise." 

She  was  called  "  the  most  agreeable 
woman  in  England,"  and  Horace  Walpole, 
not  easily  pleased,  said,  "  her  behavior  is 
all  sense  and  all  sweetness."  Sterne  pro- 
tested that  when  he  saw  her  walking  in  the 
garden  of  the  Tuileries,  she  could  annihilate 
all  the  beauties  of  Paris  in  a  single  turn. 

Garrick  died  in  1779,  and  was  buried  in 
Westminster  Abbey  (being  the  last  actor 
there  interred),  the  mourners  including  such 
men  as  Burke,  Gibbon,  Doctor  Johnson,  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds,  Sheridan,  and  Charles 
James  Fox.  To  the  same  place  followed, 
in   1822,  his  wife,  who  had  survived  him 


Garrick  3^ 

forty-three  years,  and  lies  beside  him.  She 
is  described  as  "  a  Httle  bowed-down  old 
woman,  who  went  about  leaning  on  a  gold- 
headed  cane,  dressed  in  deep  widow's  mourn- 
ing, and  always  talking  of  her  dear  Davy." 

Knight  says :  "  Her  own  death  was  curi- 
ous. She  was  on  the  point  of  going  to  see 
some  alterations  made  by  EUiston  in  Drury 
Lane,  and  chid  somewhat  testily  the  maid 
servant  who  handed  her  a  cup.  *  Put  it 
down,  hussy;  do  you  think  I  cannot  help 
myself  ? '  she  said,  tasted  the  tea,  and  ex- 
pired." 

Some  of  Goldsmith's  inimitable  lines  on 
Garrick  refer  to  the  great  actor's  vanity,  — 

"  Of  praise  a  mere  glutton,  he  swallowed  what  came, 
And  the  puff  of  a  dunce,  he  mistook  it  for  fame." 

This  failing  must  have  been  strong  in 
Garrick  when  he  found  his  figure  in  Ho- 
garth's picture  lacking  in  dignity,  and  said 
so,    whereupon    the    quick-tempered    little 


38        The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

painter  is  said  to  have  drawn  his  brush 
across  the  face.  Whether  this  be  true  or 
not,  and  it  appears  authentic,  it  is  certain 
that  the  portrait  remained  in  Hogarth's 
hands  until  his  death,  when  his  widow  sent 
it  to  Garrick.  At  the  sale  of  Mrs.  Garrick's 
effects,  in  1823,  it  was  sold  for  £75,  ii.y.  to 
Mr.  E.  W.  Locker,  of  Greenwich  Hospital. 
His  descendant,  Frederick  Locker,  the  Lon- 
don poet,  says,  in  "  My  Confidences,"  "  This 
picture  is  so  lifelike  that  as  little  children 
we  were  afraid  of  it,  so  much  so  that  my 
mother  persuaded  my  father  to  sell  it  to 
George  IV."  It  is  now  in  the  Royal  Col- 
lection at  Windsor. 

Few  actors,  if  any,  have  served  as  often 
as  Garrick  for  a  painter's  subject,  both  in 
character  and  out  of  it.  Reynolds  painted 
him  more  than  once,  notably  in  the  splendid 
**  Garrick  between  Tragedy  and  Comedy," 
and  the  names  of  the  other  artists  who 
limned  him  include  Gainsborough,  Zoffany, 


Garrick  30 

Pine,  Hudson,  Worlidge,  Liotard,  Cochin, 
Pond,  Hayman,  and  Dance. 

Sala  says :  "  Among  the  Hogarth  anec- 
dotes, few  are  so  well  known  as  that  giving 
Garrick  the  credit  for  having  sate  for  a 
posthumous  portrait  of  Fielding,  and  by 
his  extraordinary  powers  of  facial  mimicry, 
*  making  up '  a  capital  model  of  his  de- 
ceased friend.^  If  this  be  true,  Garrick 
must  have  surpassed,  as  a  mime,  that  fa- 
mous harlequin,  who  used  to  imitate  a  man 
eating  fruit,  and  from  whose  mere  gestures 
and  grimaces,  you  could  at  once  tell  the 
fruit  he  was  pretending  to  eat ;  now  he  was 
pulling  currants  from  the  stalk,  now  sucking 
an  orange,  now  biting  an  unripe  pear,  now 
swallowing  a  cherry,  and  now  exhausting  a 
gooseberry.     Then  there  is  the  account  of 

*When  this  was  told  in  Paris  by  De  la  Place, 
during  a  visit  made  by  Garrick,  some  incredulity 
was  expressed.  To  convince  the  most  skeptical,  the 
actor  once  more  personated  Fielding  in  a  manner 
that  won  instant  recognition. 


40         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Garrick  sitting  to  Hogarth  for  his  own  pic- 
ture, and  mischievously  giving  so  many 
varied  casts  of  expression  to  his  countenance 
that  the  painter  at  last  threw  down  his  brush 
in  a  pet,  and  declared  he  could  do  no  more.'* 


PEG   WOFFINGTON 

"In  every  scene  of  comic  humor  known, 
In  sprightly  sallies,  wit  was  all  thy  own. 

Thy  ears  were  ever  open  to  distress, 
Thy  ready  hand  was  ever  stretch'd  to  bless." 
Hoole's  "Monody." 

"  She  never  disappointed  an  audience  through 
three  winters  in  Dublin,  and  yet  I  have  often  seen 
her  on  the  stage  when  she  ought  to  have  been  in 
bed." 

Victor's  "  History  of  the  Theatres  of  London  and 
Dublin." 

Although  "  Little  Davy "  was  always 
a  true  and  loving  husband  to  his  spouse,  he 
is  credited  with  having  played  the  hero  in 
many  4ove   scenes   prior   to  his   marriage. 


Peg  Woffington  41 

The  heroines  of  these  dramas  were,  in  es- 
pecial, the  famous  actresses,  Mrs.  Clive, 
Mrs.  Gibber,  and  Peg  Woffington.  For 
the  last  named  it  is  certain  that  Garrick 
felt  a  genuine  passion,  which  was  warmly- 
responded  to  by  the  fascinating  Irish  girl, 
to  whom  he  addressed  this  song,  entitled 
"Pretty  Peggy:" 

"Once  more  I'll  tune  my  vocal  shell. 
To  hills  and  dales  my  Passion  tell, 
A  Flame  which  time  can  never  quell 
That  bums  for  lovely  Peggy. 

"Yet  greater  Bards  the  Lyre  should  hit; 
For  pray,  what  Subject  is  more  fit. 
Than  to  record  the  radiant  wit 
And  bloom  of  lovely  Peggy? 

"  The  Sun,  first  rising  in  the  morn, 
That  paints  the  dew-bespangled  Thorn, 
Doth  not  so  much  the  day  adorn 
As  does  my  lovely  Peggy. 

"  And  when  in  Thetis'  lap  to  rest. 
He  streaks  with  gold  the  ruddy  west, 
He's  not  so  beauteous,  as  undrest 
Appears  my  lovely  Peggy. 


42         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

"Were  she  Arrayed  in  rustic  weed, 
With  her  the  Bleating  flocks  I'd  feed, 
And  pipe  upon  my  Oaten  reed, 
To  please  my  lovely  Peggy. 

"With  her  a  Cottage  would  delight, 
All  pleases  when  she's  in  my  sight! 
But  when  she's  gone,  'Tis  endless  Night  — 
All's  dark  without  my  Peggy. 

"When  Zephyr  on  the  violet  Blows, 
Or  breathes  upon  the  damask  rose, 
He  does  not  half  the  sweets  disclose 
That  does  my  lovely  Peggy. 

"  I  stole  a  kiss  the  other  day. 
And  trust  me,  Naught  but  Truth  I  say, 
The  fragrant  breath  of  blooming  May 
Was  not  so  sweet  as  Peggy. 

"While  bees  from  Flowers  to  Flowers  rove. 
And  Linnets  warble  through  the  Grove, 
Or  Stately  swans  the  waters  love. 
So  long  shall  I  love  Peggy. 

"And  when  Death,  with  his  Pointed  Dart, 
Shall  strike  the  blow  that  rends  my  heart. 
My  words  shall  be  when  I  depart, 
Adieu,  my  lovely  Peggy." 


Peg  Woffington  43 

These  lines  were  written  a  year  or  two 
after  charming  Mistress  Woffington's  first 
appearance  in  London.  Concerning  that 
critical  period,  Augustin  Daly  wrote,  in  his 
valuable  monograph  on  Peg  Woffington: 

"  Woffington  found  herself  in  the  metrop- 
olis (when  she  arrived  after  her  hurried 
departure  from  Dublin)  without  an  engage- 
ment. It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  she 
believed  her  reputation  and  popularity  in 
the  Irish  capital  had  preceded  her,  and  that 
she  would  not  experience  any  very  great 
difficulty  in  renewing  her  relations  with  the 
theatre.  She  first  applied  to  John  Rich,  the 
manager  of  Covent  Garden.  At  that  time 
the  seesaw  of  public  favor,  rocking  be- 
tween Covent  Garden  and  Drury  Lane,  had 
sent  the  latter  to  the  ground,  and  had  lifted 
its  rival  house  to  the  airy  eminence.  Rich 
at  this  period  had  grown  to  be  quite  an 
important  creature.  His  great  good  luck  in 
the  production  of  Gay's  '  Beggar's  Opera,' 


44         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

which  had  made  (as  the  wits  of  the  day- 
said),  'Rich  gay  and  Gay  rich/  had  pos- 
sibly overelated  the  fortunate  manager,  and 
it  is  said  that  at  this  juncture  of  his  career, 
he  was  '  at  home '  to  nobody  under  a  bar- 
onet. 

"  Ignorant  or  indifferent  to  all  this,  and 
quite  self-confident  of  her  own  worth,  Wof- 
fington  boldly  went  to  Rich's  office  and 
asked  to  see  him.  Stage  porters  in  those 
days  were  quite  as  obdurate  as  in  our  own, 
and  faithful  guardians  of  the  stage  door  in 
the  eighteenth  century  were  quite  as  insus- 
ceptible to  bribes  or  beauty  as  they  are  in 
the  nineteenth.  Woffington  made  eighteen 
visits  to  Covent  Garden  before  Rich  received 
her.'' 

Charles  Reade,  in  his  admirable  novel, 
"  Peg  Woffington,"  did  not  inflict  quite  so 
many  rebuffs  on  poor  Peggy.  He  makes 
her  say  to  Triplet :  "  Managers,  sir,  are 
like  Eastern  monarchs,  inaccessible  but  to 


Rich  and  Peg  Wofflngton 

From  painting  by  Frederick  Smallfield 


Peg  Woffington  45 

slaves  and  sultanas.  Do  you  know  I  called 
on  Mr.  Rich  fifteen  times  before  I  could 
see  him  ?  It  was  years  ago,  and  he  has  paid 
me  a  hundred  pounds  for  each  of  those  little 
visits." 

A  writer  in  the  Dublin  Review  has  pic- 
tured very  graphically  this  first  meeting: 

"  The  great  manager,  as  Woffington  first 
saw  him,  was  lolling  in  ungraceful  ease  on 
a  sofa,  holding  a  play  in  one  hand,  and  in 
the  other  a  teacup,  from  which  he  sipped 
frequently.  Around  about  him  were  seven 
and  twenty  cats  of  all  sizes,  colors,  and 
kinds,  —  Toms  and  tabbies,  old  cats  and 
kittens,  tortoise-shells,  Maltese,  brindles, 
white,  black,  and  yellow  cats  of  every  de- 
scription. Some  were  frisking  over  the 
floor,  others  asleep  on  the  rug;  one  was 
licking  the  buttered  toast  on  his  breakfast 
plate,  another  was  engaged  in  drinking  the 
cream  for  his  tea,  two  cats  lay  on  his  knee, 
one  was  asleep  on  his  shoulder,  and  another 


46         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

sat  demurely  on  bis  head.  Peg  Woffington 
was  astounded  at  the  sight.  Rich,  to  her 
mind,  had  for  years  been  the  greatest  man 
in  the  world.  The  menagerie  of  grimalkins, 
amid  which  he  lay  so  carelessly,  was  so  dif- 
ferent an  environment  from  her  conception 
of  the  study  of  the  Covent  Garden  Theatre 
manager  that  she  was  embarrassed  into 
silence.  Rich,  in  his  turn,  was  equally  con- 
fused by  the  beauty  of  his  visitor,  and  lay 
staring  at  her  for  a  long  time  before  he 
recollected  his  courtesy  and  offered  her  a 
chair.  Standing  before  him  was  a  woman 
whom  he  afterward  declared  to  be  the  loveli- 
est creature  he  had  ever  seen.  She  was 
taller  than  the  ordinary  standard  of  height, 
faultless  in  form,  dignified  even  to  majesty, 
yet  withal,  winsome  and  piquant.  Her  dark 
hair,  unstained  by  powder,  fell  in  luxuriant 
wealth  over  her  neck  and  shoulders.  *  It 
was  a  fortunate  thing  for  my  wife,'  said 
Rich,  in  afterward  recounting  the  scene  to 


Peg  Woffington  47 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  *  that  I  was  not  of  a 
susceptible  temperament.  Had  it  been  other- 
wise, I  should  have  found  it  difficult  to  re- 
tain my  equanimity  enough  to  arrange  busi- 
ness negotiations  with  the  amalgamated 
Calypso,  Circe,  and  Armida  who  dazzled 
my  eyes.  A  more  fascinating  daughter  of 
Eve  never  presented  herself  to  a  manager 
in  search  of  rare  commodities.  She  was  as 
majestic  as  Juno,  as  lovely  as  Venus,  and 
as  fresh  and  charming  as  Hebe.'  " 

The  result  of  the  interview  was  that  Rich 
offered  her  an  engagement,  and  she  made 
her  first  appearance  on  the  metropolitan 
stage  November  6,  1740,  as  Sylvia  in 
Farquhar's  "  Recruiting  Officer,"  one  of  her 
happiest  assumptions.  From  that  night,  for 
as  long  a  time  as  she  remained  on  the  boards, 
she  reigned  supreme  in  comedy. 

On  May  3,  1757,  at  Covent  Garden  The- 
atre, while  speaking  the  epilogue  to  "  As 
You  Like  It,"  in  which  she  played  Rosalind ^ 


48         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

she  was  stricken  with  paralysis,  and  quitted 
forever  the  stage  on  which  she  had  won  so 
many  triumphs.  She  died  on  March  28, 
1760,  aged  only  forty-one. 


MRS.    ABINGTON 

"E'en  now  the  Muse  on  high  her  banner  rears; 
Thalia  calls  —  and  Abington  appears : 
Yes,  Abington  —  too  long  we've  been  without  her, 
With  all  the  school  of  Garrick  still  about  her." 

COLMAN. 

Of  all  the  intractable  leading  ladies  who 
acted  under  Garrick's  management,  the  ca- 
pricious Mrs.  Abington  plagued  him  the 
most.  John  Thomas  Smith  says :  "  She 
was  not  unlike  the  miller's  mare,  forever 
looking  for  a  white  stone  to  shy  at."  But 
however  trying  she  might  be  to  her  man- 
ager, she  was  a  favorite  both  on  and  off 
the  stage,  and,  although  of  very  doubtful 
extraction  and  breeding,  became  a  polished 


Mrs.  Abington  49 

woman  of  fashion  as  well  as  the  first  comic 
actress  of  her  day. 

In  appearance,  a  bird  of  paradise  and  a 
behemoth  would  not  differ  much  more  than 
Mrs.  Abington  and  Doctor  Johnson,  yet  they 
were  good  friends,  and  the  gruff  but  great 
philosopher  was,  like  her,  fond  of  fashion- 
able folk. 

Boswell,  writing  under  date  of  1775, 
says:  "On  Monday,  March  27th,  I  break- 
fasted with  him  (Johnson)  at  M)r.  Strahan's. 
He  told  us  that  he  was  engaged  to  go  that 
evening  to  Mrs.  Abington's  benefit.  *  She 
was  visiting  some  ladies  whom  I  was  visit- 
ing, and  begged  that  I  would  come  to  her 
benefit.  I  told  her  I  could  not  hear;  but 
she  insisted  so  much  on  my  coming  that  it 
would  have  been  brutal  to  have  refused  her.* 
This  was  a  speech  quite  characteristical.  He 
loved  to  bring  forward  his  having  been  in 
the  gay  circles  of  life,  and  he  was,  perhaps, 
a  little  vain  of  the  solicitations  of  this  ele- 


50         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

gant  and  fashionable  actress.  He  told  us 
the  play  was  to  be  *  The  Hypocrite,'  altered 
from  Gibber's  '  Nonjuror.'.  .  .  I  met  him 
at  Drury  Lane  playhouse  in  the  evening. 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  at  Mrs.  Abington's 
request,  had  promised  to  bring  a  body  of 
wits  to  her  benefit;  and,  having  secured 
forty  places  in  the  front  boxes,  had  done  me 
the  honor  to  put  me  in  the  group.  John- 
son sat  on  the  seat  directly  behind  me,  and, 
as  he  could  neither  see  nor  hear  at  such  a 
distance  from  the  stage,  he  was  wrapped  up 
in  grave  abstraction,  and  seemed  quite  a 
cloud  amidst  all  the  sunshine  of  glitter  and 
gaiety.  I  wondered  at  his  patience  in  sitting 
out  a  play  of  five  acts,  and  a  farce  of  two. 
He  said  very  little."  A  few  days  later  Bos- 
well  records :  "  I  supped  with  him  and  some 
friends  at  a  tavern.  One  of  the  company 
attempted,  with  too  much  forwardness,  to 
rally  him  on  his  late  appearance  at  the  the- 
atre, but  had  reason  to  repent  of  his  temer- 


Mrs.  Abington  51 

ity.  '  Why,  sir,  did  you  go  to  Mrs.  Abing- 
ton's  benefit?  Did  you  see?'  *  No,  sir.' 
'  Did  you  hear?  '  '  No,  sir.'  '  Why,  then, 
sir,  did  you  go  ?  '  '  Because,  sir,  she  is  a 
favorite  of  the  publick;  and  when  the  pub- 
lick  cares  the  thousandth  part  for  you  that 
it  does  for  her,  I  will  go  to  your  benefit, 
too.'  " 

A  very  different  man  from  Johnson,  Hor- 
ace Walpole,  also  admired  Mrs.  Abington, 
as  can  be  seen  from  the  following  gallant 
invitation  which  he  sent  to  her: 

"Strawberry  Hill,  June  11,  1780.^ 
"  Madame  :  —  You  may  certainly  always 
command  me  and  my  house.  My  common 
custom  is  to  give  a  ticket  for  only  four  per- 
sons at  a  time;  but  it  would  be  very  inso- 
lent in  me,  when  all  laws  are  set  at  naught, 
to  pretend  to  prescribe  rules.  At  such  times, 
there  is  a  shadow  of  authority  in  setting  the 
laws  aside  by  the  legislature  itself;    and, 


5  2         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

though  I  have  no  army  to  supply  their  place, 
I  declare  Mrs.  Abington  may  march  through 
all  my  dominions  at  the  head  of  as  large  a 
troop  as  she  pleases,  —  I  do  not  say,  as  she 
can  muster  and  command ;  for  then  I  am  sure 
my  house  would  not  hold  them.  The  day, 
too,  is  at  her  own  choice,  and  the  master  is 
her  very  obedient,  humble  servant, 

"HoR.   Walpole." 

Walpole  thought  Lady  Teade,  which  part 
she  created,  to  be  Mrs.  Abington' s  best  ef- 
fort. Reynolds  painted  her  in  this  charac- 
ter; again  as  the  Comic  Muse,  as  Roxalana 
in  "  The  Sultan  "  (this  portrait  he  presented 
to  Mrs.  Abington),  and  as  Miss  Prue  in 
Congreve's  "  Love  for  Love,"  which  latter 
picture  is  reproduced  here.  It  shows  Miss 
Prue  in  the  scene  where  the  rough  sailor, 
Ben,  makes  love  to  her  according  to  his 
father's   commands: 


tAffs.  Abingion  as  "  Miss  Prue  " 

From  painting  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 


Mrs.  Abington  S3 

"Ben.  Come,  mistress,  will  you  please  to  sit 
down?  for  an  you  stand  astern  a'  that'n,  we  shall 
never  grapple  together.  —  Come,  I'll  haul  a  chair; 
there,  an  you  please  to  sit,  I'll  sit  by  you. 

Prue.  You  need  not  sit  so  near  one;  if  you  have 
anything  to  say,  I  can  hear  you  farther  off.     I  an't  deaf. 

Ben.  Why,  that's  true,  as  you  say;  nor  I  an't 
dumb ;  I  can  be  heard  as  far  as  another ;  —  I'll  heave 
off  to  please  you. —  [Sits  farther  off.]  An  we  were 
a  league  asunder,  I'd  undertake  to  hold  discourse 
with  you,  an  'twere  not  a  main  high  wind  indeed, 
and  full  in  my  teeth.  Look  you,  forsooth,  I  am, 
as  it  were,  bound  for  the  land  of  matrimony;  'tis 
a  voyage,  d'ye  see,  that  was  none  of  my  seeking. 
I  was  commanded  by  father,  and,  if  you  li^e  of 
it,  mayhap  I  may  steer  into  your  harbor.  How  say 
you,  mistress?  The  short  of  the  thing  is  that,  if 
you  like  me,  and  I  like  you,  we  may  chance  to 
swing  in  a  hammock  together. 

Prue.  I  don't  know  what  to  say  to  you,  nor  I 
don't  care  to  speak  with  you  at  all. 

Ben.  No?  I'm  sorry  for  that.  —  But  pray,  why 
are  you  so  scornful? 

Prue.  As  long  as  one  must  not  speak  one's  mind, 
one  had  better  not  speak  at  all,  I  think,  and  truly 
I  won't  tell  a  lie  for  the  matter. 

Ben.  Nay,  you  say  true  in  that,  'tis  but  a  folly 
to  lie:  for  to  speak  one  thing,  and  to  think  just 
the  contrary  way,  is,  as  it  were,  to  look  one  way 
and  row  another.     Now,  for  my  part,  d'ye  see,  I'm 


54        I'he  Great  Masters  of  the  DratHd 

for  carrying  things  above  board;  I'm  not  for  keep- 
ing anything  under  hatches,  —  so  that  if  you  ben't  as 
willing  as  I,  say  so  a'  God's  name,  there's  no  harm 
done.  Mayhap  you  may  be  shamefaced?  Some 
maidens,  tho'f  they  love  a  man  well  enough,  yet 
they  don't  care  to  tell'n  so  to's  face:  if  that's  the 
case,  why  silence  gives  consent. 

Prue.  But  I'm  sure  it  is  not  so,  for  I'll  speak 
sooner  than  you  should  believe  that;  and  I'll  speak 
truth,  though  one  should  always  tell  a  lie  to  a  man; 
and  I  don't  care;  let  my  father  do  what  he  will; 
I'm  too  big  to  be  whipped,  so  I'll  tell  you  plainly 
I  don't  like  you,  nor  love  you  at  all,  nor  never  will, 
that's  more;  so,  there's  your  answer  for  you;  and 
don't  trouble  me  no  more,  you  ugly  thing ! " 


MRS.    SIDDONS 

"What  Mrs.  Siddons  may  have  been  when  she 
had  the  advantages  of  youth  and  form,  I  cannot  say, 
but  it  appears  to  me  that  her  performance  at  present 
leaves  room  to  wish  for  nothing  more." 

Washington   Irving    (1805). 

"  She  was  tragedy  personified." 

William  Hazlitt. 

Instead  of  gazing  upon  Mrs.  Siddons  as 
painted,  in  or  out  of  character,  by  Gainsbor- 


[Mrs.  Siddons  and  Fanny  Kemhle 

From  painting  by  Henry  Perronet  Briggs 


Mrs.   Siddons  55 

ough,  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  Harlow,  or 
Beechey,  and  passing  by  even  Sir  Joshua's 
magnificent  picture  of  her  as  the  Muse  of 
Tragedy,  let  us  look  at  an  unfamiliar  but 
most  interesting  group  of  Mrs.  Siddons  and 
her  niece,  Fanny  Kemble,  by  Briggs,  a  Royal 
Academician,  who  once  enjoyed  much  re- 
pute as  a  portrait  painter.  This  picture  is 
the  property  of  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  to 
which  institution  it  was  given  by  Fanny 
Kemble  herself  many  years  ago. 

That  charming  actress,  who  died  in  1893, 
an  old  lady  of  eighty-three,  spent  many 
years  of  her  life  in  America,  having  first 
appeared  in  the  United  States,  at  the  Park 
Theatre  in  New  York,  as  Bianca,  in  1832. 
She  married  a  Scmtherner,  Mr.  Pierce  But- 
ler, in  1834,  but  the  union  turned  out  un- 
happily, and  was  put  an  end  to  by  divorce. 
At  a  later  time,  she  gained  additional  fame 
by  her  readings  from  Shakespeare,  and  her 
dramatic    talent    was    supplemented    by    a 


56         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

poetic  gift.  She  not  only  produced  verses 
of  merit,  but  two  or  three  plays,  and  wrote 
several  delightful  volumes  of  reminiscences, 
filled  with  anecdotes  of  the  numberless  celeb- 
rities she  had  met. 

Many  eminent  Americans  were  her 
friends,  Longfellow  among  them,  and  his 
fine  sonnet,  written  in  1849  i^^  admiration 
of  her  readings,  may  be  quoted  here: 

"  O  precious  evenings !    all  too  swiftly  sped ! 
Leaving  us  heirs  to  amplest  heritages 
Of  all  the  best  thoughts  of  the  greatest  sages. 

And  giving  tongues  unto  the  silent  dead! 

How  our  hearts  glowed  and  trembled  as  she  read, 
Interpreting  by  tones  the  wondrous  pages 
Of  the  great  poet  who  foreruns  the  ages 

Anticipating  all  that  shall  be  said! 

O  happy  reader !   having  for  thy  text 
The  magic  book,  whose  sibylline  leaves  have  caught 
The  rarest  essence  of  all  human  thought! 

O  happy  poet !  by  no  critic  vext ! 
How  must  thy  listening  spirit  now  rejoice 
To  be  interpreted  by  such  a  voice ! " 

From  Fanny  Kemble's  "  Records  of  a 
Girlhood "   are  taken   the   following  refer- 


Mrs.  Siddons  57 

ences  to  her  famous  aunt.  When  Fanny 
was  a  child,  "  Mrs.  Siddons,"  she  says,  "  at 
that  time  Hved  next  door  to  us;  she  came 
in  one  day  when  I  had  committed  some  of 
my  daily  offences  against  manners  or  mor- 
als, and  I  was  led,  nothing  daunted,  into 
her  awful  presence  to  be  admonished  by 
her. 

"  Melpomene  took  me  upon  her  lap,  and, 
bending  upon  me  her  *  controlling  frown,* 
discoursed  to  me  of  my  evil  ways  in  those 
accents  which  curdled  the  blood  of  the  poor 
shopman,  of  whom  she  demanded  if  the 
printed  calico  she  purchased  of  him  *  would 
wash.'  The  tragic  tones  pausing  in  the 
midst  of  the  impressed  and  impressive  si- 
lence of  the  assembled  family,  I  tinkled 
forth:  *  What  beautiful  eyes  you  have!' 
all  my  small  faculties  having  been  absorbed 
in  the  steadfast  upward  gaze  I  fixed  upon 
those  magnificent  orbs.  Mrs.  Siddons  set 
me  down  with  a  smothered  laugh,  and  I 


58        The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

trotted  off,  apparently  uninjured  by  my 
great  aunt's  solemn  moral  suasion." 

This  sprightly  juvenile  was  but  little  older 
when  her  parents  removed  to  Covent  Garden 
Chambers.  "  It  was  while,"  she  says,  "  we 
were  living  here  that  Mrs.  Siddons  returned 
to  the  stage  for  one  night,  and  acted  Lady 
Randolph  for  my  father's  benefit.  Of  course 
I  heard  much  discourse  about  this,  tO'  us, 
important  and  exciting  event,  and  used  all 
my  small  powers  of  persuasion  to  be  taken 
to  see  her. 

"  My  father,  who  loved  me  very  much, 
and  spoiled  me  not  a  little,  carried  me  early 
in  the  afternoon  into  the  market-place,  and 
showed  me  the  dense  mass  of  people  which 
filled  the  whole  Piazza,  in  patient  expecta- 
tion of  admission  to  the  still  unopened  doors. 
This  was  by  way  of  proving  to  me  how 
impossible  it  was  to  grant  my  request. 
However  that  might  then  appear,  it  was 
granted,  for  I  was  in  the  theatre  at  the  be- 


Mrs,  Siddons  59 

ginning  of  the  performance;  but  I  can  now 
remember  nothing  of  it  but  the  appearance 
of  a  solemn  female  figure  in  black,  and  the 
tremendous  roar  of  public  greeting  which 
welcomed .  her,  and  must,  I  suppose,  have 
terrified  my  childish  senses,  by  the  impres- 
sion I  still  retain  of  it;  and  this  is  the  only 
occasion  on  which  I  saw  my  aunt  in  public." 
On  June  8,  183 1,  Fanny  Kemble,  then 
twenty-one  and  an  accepted  star,  having 
won  immense  success  at  her  debut  as  Juliet 
at  Covent  Garden  in  1829,  thus  records  the 
death  of  Mrs.  Siddons :  "  While  I  was  writ- 
ing to  H ,  my  mother  came  in  and  told 

me  that  Mrs.  Siddons  was  dead.  I  was  not 
surprised;  she  has  been  ill  and  gradually 
failing  for  so  long.  .  o  .  I  could  not  be 
much  grieved  for  myself,  for  of  course  I 
had  had  but  little  intercourse  with  her, 
though  she  was  always  very  kind  to  me 
when  I  saw  her.  .  .  .  She  died  at  eight 
o'clock  this  morning,  —  peaceably  and  with- 


6o         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

out  suffering,  and  in  full  consciousness.  .  .  . 
I  wonder  if  she  is  gone  where  Milton  and 
Shakespeare  are,  to  whose  worship  she  was 
priestess  all  her  life,  —  whose  thoughts  were 
her  familiar  thoughts,  whose  words  were 
her  familiar  words." 

At  least  three  of  Mrs.  Siddons's  great 
parts  —  Constance,  Lady  Macbeth,  and 
Queen  Katharine  —  were  also  acted  by 
Fanny  Kemble.  Speaking  of  her  aunt  and 
herself  in  the  last  named  character  she 
wrote :  "  My  performance  of  Queen  Kath- 
arine was  not  condemned  as  an  absolute  fail- 
ure only  because  the  public  in  general  didn't 
care  about  it,  and  the  friends  and  well-wish- 
ers of  the  theatre  were  determined  not  to 
consider  it  one.  But  as  I  myself  remember 
it,  it  deserved  to  be  called  nothing  else;  it 
was  a  schoolgirl's  performance,  tame,  fee- 
ble, and  ineffective,  entirely  wanting  in  the 
weight  and  dignity  indispensable  for  the 
part,  and  must  sorely  have  tried  the  patience 


Mrs.  Siddons  6i 

and  forbearance  of  such  of  my  spectators  as 
were  fortunate  and  unfortunate  enough  to 
remember  my  aunt;  one  of  whom,  her  en- 
thusiastic admirer  and  my  excellent  friend, 
Mr.  Harness,  said  that,  seeing  me  in  that 
dress  was  like  looking  at  Mrs.  Siddons 
through  the  diminishing  end  of  an  opera- 
glass  :  I  should  think  my  acting  of  the 
part  must  have  borne  much  the  same  pro- 
portion to  hers.  I  was  dressed  for  the  trial 
scene  in  imitation  of  the  famous  picture  by 
Harlow,  and,  of  course,  must  have  recalled, 
in  the  most  provoking  and  absurd  manner, 
the  great  actress  whom  I  resembled  so  little 
and  so  much.  In  truth,  I  could  hardly  sus- 
tain the  weight  of  velvet  and  ermine  in 
which  I  was  robed,  and  to  which  my  small, 
girlish  figure  was  as  little  adapted  as  my 
dramatic  powers  were  to  the  matronly  dig- 
nity of  the  character.  I  cannot  but  think 
that,  if  I  might  have  dressed  the  part  as 
Queen  Katharine  really  dressed  herself,  and 


62         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

been  allowed  to  look  as  like  as  I  could  to 
the  little  dark,  hard-favored  woman  Hol- 
bein painted,  it  would  have  been  better  than 
to  challenge  such  a  physical  as  well  as  dra- 
matic comparison  by  the  imitation  of  my 
aunt's  costume  in  the  part.  Englishmen  of 
her  day  will  never  believe  that  Katharine 
of  Aragon  could  have  looked  otherwise  than 
Mrs.  Siddons  did  in  Shakespeare's  play  of 
'  Henry  VIH. ; '  but  nothing  could  in  truth 
be  more  unlike  the  historical  woman  than  the 
tall,  large,  bare-armed,  white-necked,  Juno- 
eyed,  ermine-robed  ideal  of  queenship  of 
the  English  stage.  That  quintessence  of 
religious,  conscientious  bigotry  and  royal 
Spanish  pride  is  given  both  in  the  portraits 
of  contemporary  painters  and  in  Shake- 
speare's delineation  of  her;  the  splendid 
magnificence  of  my  aunt's  person  and  dress, 
as  delineated  in  Harlow's  picture,  has  no 
affinity  whatever  to  the  real  woman's  figure, 
or  costume,  or  character." 


Kemble  63 

Henry  Perronet  Briggs,  born  at  Wal- 
worth in  1793,  was  educated  in  the  schools 
of  the  Royal  Academy,  of  which  body  he 
was  elected  an  Academician  in  1832.  He 
painted  some  historical  works,  together 
with  several  scenes  from  Shakespeare,  but 
his  talent  in  portraiture  became  so  much  in 
demand  that  he  devoted  himself  to  that 
branch  of  art.  His  picture  of  Lord  Eldon 
is  said  to  be  one  of  his  best  portraits.  He 
died  in  London  in  1844. 


KEMBLE 

"Time  may  again  revive. 

But  ne'er  eclipse  the  charm 
When  Cato  spoke  in  him  alive. 
Or  Hotspur  kindled  warm." 

Campbell. 

That  remarkable  family  —  the  Kembles 
—  supplied  the  British  stage  with  numerous 
actors  and  actresses  of  varying  degrees  of 


64         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

merit,  from  that  wonderful  woman,  "the 
great  Siddons,"  to  Stephen  Kemble,  who 
could  play  Falstaif  "without  stuffing." 

John  Philip,  the  greatest  among  the  male 
Kembles  only,  was,  in  his  own  opinion 
(apparently),  in  that  of  his  famous  sister 
and  his  brother  Charles,  the  foremost  actor 
of  them  all.  Less  prejudiced  judges  have 
assigned  him  a  place  which,  though  high 
indeed,  is  next  below  M)rs.  Siddons.  Of  all 
the  classic  parts  which  he  so  well  portrayed, 
Coriolanus  was  perhaps  his  best,  yet  that 
fine  actor,  Charles  Young,  spoke  of  Mrs. 
Siddons's  Volumnia  as  overshadowing 
Kemble. 

It  is  with  feelings  of  pity  that  we  read 
of  Kemble  —  a  noble  representative  of 
Shakespeare's  noble  Romans  —  being  con- 
demned to  utter  the  claptrap  speeches  of 
Rolla  in  Sheridan's  "  Pizarro,"  produced  at 
Drury  Lane  in  1799.  The  part,  however, 
became  one  of  his  most  effective  ones,  and 


Kemble  65 

the  play  was  a  tremendous  success.  The 
cast  included  Mrs.  Siddons,  Mrs.  Jordan, 
and  Charles  Kemble,  and  the  piece  was  per- 
formed thirty-one  nights,  an  extraordinary 
run  for  those  days.  Thirty  thousand  copies 
of  it  were  sold,  and  the  profits  of  the  first 
season  alone  were  said  to  be  £15,000. 

Henry  Crabb  Robinson  wrote  to  his 
brother :  "  I  suppose  the  fame  of  *  Pizarro  * 
has  already  reached  you.  It  is  unquestion- 
ably the  most  excellent  play  I  ever  saw  for 
variety  of  attractions.  The  scenery  and 
decorations  are  splendid  and  magnificent 
without  being  tawdry  or  puerile,  and  these 
ornaments  are  made  to  heighten,  not  super- 
sede, real  dramatic  merit.  The  tragedy  pos- 
sesses scenes  of  the  most  tender  and  pa- 
thetic kind,  and  others  highly  heroic.  .  .  . 
Kemble  plays  the  Peruvian  chieftain  in  his 
very  best  style.  The  lover  of  Cora,  he  vol- 
untarily yields  her  to  Alonzo,  and,  when 
they  are  married,  devotes  his  life  to  their 


66         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

happiness ;  brave,  generous,  and  pious,  he  is 
a  kind  of  demi-god,  —  and  you  know  with 
what  skill  Kemble  can  *  assume  the  god  and 
try  to  shake  the  spheres.'  The  incidents 
are  in  themselves  so  highly  interesting  and 
extraordinary  that  far  less  superiority  of 
acting  and  pomp  of  machinery  would  have 
given  ordinary  effect  to  the  piece ;  but,  when 
united  with  the  utmost  efforts  of  the  painter 
and  machinist,  they  produce  a  drama  abso- 
lutely without  parallel.  Were  you  a  little 
richer,  I  should  recommend  a  journey  to 
London  on  purpose  to  see  it." 

Percy  Fitzgerald,  in  his  "  Lives  of  the 
Sheridans,"  gives  an  account  of  the  opening 
night  of  "  Pizarro,''  which  actually  arrived 
before  the  dilatory  author  had  completed  the 
play.  Fitzgerald  writes :  "In  the  case  of 
*  Pizarro,'  his  indolence  was  so  great  that 
some  of  the  players  received  their  parts  only 
the  day  before,  and  Mrs.  Jordan  obtained 
her  song  on  the  night  of  performance.     A 


emi 


67 


friend  carried  Sheridan  off  to  an  inn  at 
Bagshot,  where  he  put  together  Rolla's  fa- 
mous speech,  adapting  to  it  some  of  his  old 
thunder.  Even  on  the  very  evening  that 
it  was  first  performed,  the  concluding  por- 
tion remained  unfinished.  Sheridan  wrote 
it  at  the  Shakespeare  Tavern  in  Covent 
Garden,  not  half  an  hour  before  the  curtain 
drew  up  and  the  play  commenced.  The 
actors  received  and  learned  them  before  the 
ink  was  dry  with  which  they  were  written. 
...  At  the  time  the  house  was  overflowing 
on  the  first  night's  performance,  all  that 
was  written  of  the  play  was  actually  rehears- 
ing, and,  incredible  as  it  may  appear,  until 
the  end  of  the  fourth  act,  neither  Mrs.  Sid- 
dons,  nor  Charles  Kemble,  nor  Barrymore 
had  all  their  speeches  for  the  fifth!  Mr. 
Sheridan  was  up-stairs  in  the  prompter's 
room,  where  he  was  writing  the  last  part  of 
the  play,  while  the  earlier  parts  were  acting, 
and  every  ten  minutes  he  brought  down  as 


68         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

much  of  the  dialogue  as  he  had  done,  piece- 
meal, into  the  greenroom,  abusing  himself 
and  his  negligence,  and  making  a  thousand 
winning  and  soothing  apologies  for  having 
kept  the  performers  so  long  in  such  painful 
suspense. 

"  One  remarkable  trait  in  Sheridan's 
character  was  his  penetrating  knowledge  of 
the  human  mind;  for  no  man  was  more 
careful  in  his  carelessness.  He  was  quite 
aware  of  his  power  over  his  performers, 
and  of  the  veneration  in  which  they  held 
his  great  talents;  had  he  not  been  so,  he 
would  not  have  ventured  to  keep  them  ( Mrs. 
Siddons  particularly)  in  the  dreadful  anxi- 
ety which  they  were  suffering  the  whole  of 
the  evening.  Mrs.  Siddons  told  me  that 
she  was  in  an  agony  of  fright;  but  Sheri- 
dan perfectly  knew  that  Mrs.  Siddons, 
C.  Kemble,  and  Barrymore  were  quicker 
in  study  than  any  other  performers  con- 
cerned, and  that  he  could  trust  them  to  be 


Kemble  69 

perfect  in  what  they  had  to  say,  even  at 
half  an  hour's  notice.  And  the  event  proved 
that  he  was  right;  the  play  was  received 
with  the  greatest  approbation,  and,  though 
brought  out  so'  late  in  the  season,  was  played 
thirty-one  nights,  and  for  years  afterward 
proved  a  mine  of  wealth  to  the  Drury  Lane 
treasury,  and,  indeed,  to  all  the  theatres  in 
the  United  Kingdom." 

Kemble  took  leave  of  the  stage  in  "  Co- 
riolanus,"  on  June  23,  18 17.  Lord  William 
Lennox,  who  was  present,  says :  "  As  a  boy 
at  Westminster,  I  had  seen  this  great  actor 
in  almost  all  his  parts,  but  never  to  my  mind 
did  he  equal  his  performance  of  the  noble 
Roman  when  taking  leave  of  the  stage." 

Four  days  later,  Kemble  was  given  a 
farewell  dinner  at  the  Freemason's  Tavern, 
when  Young  recited  Campbell's  valedictory 
stanzas,  from  which  are  taken  the  lines  at 
the  head  of  this  chapter.  Lord  Holland  pre- 
sided at  the  banquet,  where  literature  was 


70         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

represented  by  Campbell,  Rogers,  M'oore, 
and  Crabbe,  the  stage  by  Talma  and  Ma- 
cready,  and  art  by  Haydon,  Turner,  and 
Lawrence. 

The  last  named  painted  Kemble  in  sev- 
eral characters :  as  Hamlet,  exhibited  at  the 
Royal  Academy  in  1801,  and  now  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery;  as  Cato,  as  Cori- 
olanus,  and  as  Rolla,  here  reproduced.  The 
head  of  Rolla  is  that  of  Kemble,  but  the 
body  was  painted  from  Jackson,  the  cele- 
brated pugilist. 


MRS.    JORDAN 

"  There  was  one  comic  actress  who  was  nature 
herself  in  one  of  her  most  genial  forms.  This  was 
Mrs.   Jordan."  Leigh   Hunt. 

Although  this  fascinating  Irishwoman 
essayed  some  tragic  parts  in  supporting  Mrs. 
Siddons,  and  appeared  as  the  original  Cora 


■ii*^: 


Kemble  as '"Holla'' 

From  painting  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence 


Mrs.  Jordan  7 1 

in  Sheridan's  tragedy  of  "  Pizarro,"  it  was 
in  comedy  that  her  real  strength  lay.  As  a 
comic  actress,  she  must  be  classed  with  Wof- 
fington,  Kitty  Give,  and  Mrs.  Abington. 

Rosalind  and  Viola  were  called  two  of 
her  finest  assumptions.    Peter  Pindar  wrote : 

"Had  Shakespeare's  self  at  Drury  been, 
While  Jordan  played  each  varied  scene, 
He  would  have  started  from  l^is  seat 
And  cried  —  That's  Rosalind  complete." 

William  Robson,  the  "  old  playgoer,"  de- 
clared that  "  there  never  was,  there  never 
will  be,  there  never  can  he  her  equal  in  the 
part."  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  called  her  Viola 
"  tender  and  exquisite,"  and  Charles  Lamb, 
who  dubbed  her  "  Shakespeare's  woman," 
said  of  it :  "  She  used  no  rhetoric  in  her 
passion ;  or  it  was  nature's  own  rhetoric, 
most  legitimate  then,  when  it  seemed  alto- 
gether without  rule  or  law." 

Second  only,  if  second,  to  Peg  Woffington 


J 2         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

in  the  part  of  Sir  Harry  Wildair,  she  was 
unrivalled  as  a  tomboy  or  a  hoyden. 

Genest,  in  his  "  History  of  the  Stage," 
asserts  that  "  Mrs.  Clive  no  doubt  played 
Nell  as  well  as  Mrs.  Jordan;  it  was  hardly 
possible  for  her  to  have  played  the  part  bet- 
ter. Mrs.  Jordan's  Country  Girl,  Romp, 
Miss  Hoyden,  and  all  characters  of  that 
description  were  exquisite.  In  breeches 
parts,  no  actress  can  be  put  in  competition 
with  her  but  Mrs.  Woffington,  and  to  Mrs. 
Woffington  she  was  superior  in  point  of 
voice,  as  Mrs.  Woffington  was  superior  to 
her  in  beauty." 

Her  first  appearance  at  Drury  Lane  was 
on  the  1 8th  of  October,  1785,  in  the  part 
of  Peggy  in  "  The  Country  Girl,"  a  play 
which  Garrick  had  altered  from  Wycherly's 
"  Country  Wife,"  and  in  which  she  made  an 
enormous  success.  Boaden,  her  friend  and 
biographer,  says :  "  Perhaps  no  actress  ever 
excited   so  much    laughter.  .  .  .  How   ex- 


Mrs,  Jordan  in  "  The  Country  Girl** 

From  painting  by  George  Romney 


Mrs.  Jordan  73 

actly  had  this  child  of  nature  calculated  her 
efficacy  that  no  intention  on  her  part  was  ever 
missed,  and,  from  first  to  last,  the  audience 
responded  uniformly  in  an  astonishment  of 
delight.  .  .  .  But  her  fertility  as  an  actress 
was  at  its  height  in  the  letter  scene,  perhaps 
the  most  perfect  of  all  her  efforts,  and  the 
best  je%  de  theatre  known  without  mech- 
anism. The  very  pen  and  ink  were  made 
to  express  the  rustic  petulance  of  the  writer 
of  the  first  epistle,  and  the  eager  delight 
that  composed  the  second,  which  was  to  be 
despatched  instead  of  it  to  her  lover." 

Mrs.  Tickell  wrote  to  her  sister,  Mrs. 
Sheridan :  "  I  went  last  night  to  see  our 
new  *  Country  Girl,'  and  I  can  assure  you,  if 
you  have  any  reliance  on  my  judgment,  she 
has  more  genius  in  her  little  finger  than 
Miss  Brunton  in  her  whole  body.  .  .  .  But 
to  this  little  actress,  —  for  little  she  is,  and 
yet  not  insignificant  in  her  figure,  which, 
though  short,  has  a  certain  roundness  and 


74         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

embonpoint  which  is  very  graceful,  —  her 
voice  is  harmony  itself  in  level,  quiet  speak- 
ing (we  had  an  opportunity  of  judging  this 
in  a  few  lines  she  spoke  in  the  way  of  epi- 
logue, like  Rosalind),  and  it  has  certain 
little  breaks  and  indescribable  tones  which 
in  simple  archness  have  a  wonderful  effect, 
and  I  think,  without  exception  (even  of 
Mrs.  Siddons),  she  has  the  most  distinct 
delivery  of  any  actor  or  actress  I  ever  heard. 
Her  face  I  could  not  see,  owing  to  the  amaz- 
ing bunch  of  hair  she  had  pulled  over  her 
forehead,  but  they  tell  me  it  is  expressive, 
but  not  very  pretty.  Her  action  is  odd,  a 
little  outre,  probably  affected  for  the  char- 
acters." 

When  Mrs.  Jordan  gained  this  extraor- 
dinary triumph,  she  was  in  her  twenty-third 
year. 

"  Hazlitt  called  her  a  child  of  nature, 
whose  voice  was  a  cordial  to  the  heart,  to 
hear  whose  laugh  was  nectar,  whose  talk 


Mrs.  Jordan  75 

was  far  above  singing,  and  whose  singing 
was  like  the  twanging  of  Cupid's  bow. 
Hay  don  speaks  of  her  as  touching  and  fas- 
cinating. Byron  declared  she  was  superb. 
Mathews  talks  of  her  as  an  extraordinary 
and  exquisite  being,  distinct  from  any  other 
being  in  the  world,  as  she  was  superior  to 
all  her  contemporaries  in  her  particular 
line." 

"  Kemble  said  she  was  irresistible.  '  It 
may  seem  ridiculous,'  he  once  remarked  to 
Boaden,  *  but  I  could  have  taken  her  in  my 
arms  and  cherished  her,  though  it  was  in 
the  open  street,  without  blushing.'  Such  an 
expression  from  the  frigid  lips  of  Kemble 
was  a  compliment  that  spoke  volumes  in 
her  praise." 

The  critical  Macready,  who  had  played 
Don  Felix  to  Mrs.  Jordan's  Violante  in 
"  The  Wonder,"  permitted  himself  to  speak 
of  her  with  enthusiasm.  His  words  are :  "  If 
Mrs.  Siddons  appeared  a  personification  of 


76         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

the  tragic  muse,  certainly  all  the  attributes 
of  Thalia  were  most  joyously  combined  in 
Mrs.  Jordan.  .  .  ,  Her  voice  was  one  of 
the  most  melodious  I  ever  heard,  which  she 
could  vary  by  certain  bass  tones  that  would 
have  disturbed  the  gravity  of  a  hermit; 
and  who  that  once  heard  that  laugh  of  hers 
could  ever  forget  it?  The  words  of  Mil- 
man  would  have  applied  well  to  her,  — 
*  Oh,  the  words  laughed  on  her  lips ! '  Mrs. 
Nesbitt,  the  charming  actress  of  a  later  day, 
had  a  fascinating  power  in  the  sweetly  ring- 
ing notes  of  her  hearty  mirth,  but  Mrs.  Jor- 
dan's laugh  was  so  rich,  so  apparently  irre- 
pressible, so  deliciously  self-enjoying,  as  to 
be  at  all  times  irresistible.  Its  contagious 
power  would  have  broken  down  the  conven- 
tional serenity  of  Lord  Chesterfield  him- 
self." 

Romney  painted  Mrs.  Jordan  several 
times,  both  as  in  private  life  and  in  one  or 
two    of    the    characters    with    which    she 


Talma  77 

charmed  her  audiences,  and  there  is  also 
an  admirable  picture  of  her,  by  Hoppner, 
as  Hypolita  in  Gibber's  ''  She  Would  and 
She  Would  Not." 


TALMA 

"The  genius  of  Talma  rose  above  all  the  con- 
ventionality of  schools.  To  my  judgment,  he  was 
the  most  finished  artist  of  his  time." 

Macready. 
"Incomparably  the  best  actor  I  ever  saw." 

Carlyle. 

Talma,  who  had  lived  much  in  England 
in  his  youth,  and  at  a  later  time  acted  there 
with  success,  was  a  friend  of  Kemble's,  and 
was  present  at  the  farewell  banquet  to  the 
tragedian,  when,  Talma's  health  being 
drank,  he  returned  thanks  in  very  good 
English. 

A  few  weeks  before  this  occasion,  a  noted 
Bostonian,  George  Ticknor,  had  seen  Talma 
on  the  Paris  stage,  and  had  set  down  his 


78         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

impressions  of  the  performance  in  his  diary, 
from  which  we  draw  the  following  account : 
''April  II,  1817.  This  evening  I  have 
been  for  the  first  time  to  the  French  theatre ; 
and  I  hasten  to  note  my  feelings  and  impres- 
sions that  I  may  have  them  in  their  fresh- 
ness. It  was  rather  an  uncommon  occasion, 
—  the  benefit  of  Mile.  St.  Val,  now  sixty- 
five  years  old,  who  has  not  played  before 
for  thirty  years;  and  Talma  and  Mile. 
Mars  both  played.  .  .  .  The  piece  was 
*  Iphigenie  en  Tauride,'  by  Guymond  de  la 
Touche,  which  has  been  on  the  stage  sixty 
years,  but  I  cannot  find  its  merits  above 
mediocrity.  .  .  .  Iphigenie  was  performed 
by  Mile.  St.  Val,  who  is  old  and  ugly.  She 
was  applauded  through  the  first  act  with 
decisive  good  nature,  and  in  many  parts 
deserved  it;  but  in  the  second  act,  when 
Talma  came  out  as  Orestes,  she  was  at  once 
forgotten,  and  he  well  deserved  that  in  his 
presence  no  other   should  be  remembered. 


Talma  79 

.  ,  .  The  piece  and  his  part,  Hke  almost 
everything  of  the  kind  in  the  French  drama, 
was  conceived  in  the  style  of  the  court  of 
Louis  XIV.;  but  Talma,  in  his  dress,  in 
every  movement,  every  look,  was  a  Greek. 
...  To  have  arrived  at  such  perfection,  he 
must  have  studied  antiquity  as  no  modern 
actor  has  done,  and  the  proofs  of  this  were 
very  obvious.  His  dress  was  perfect;  his 
gestures  and  attitudes  reminded  one  of  an- 
cient statues;  and  when,  in  imagination, 
pursued  by  the  Furies,  he  becomes  frenzied, 
changes  color,  trembles,  and  falls,  pale  and 
powerless,  before  the  implacable  avengers, 
it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  he  has  studied 
and  felt  the  scene  in  Euripides  and  the 
praises  of  Longinus.  His  study  of  the  an- 
cient statues  struck  me  in  the  passage,  when, 
in  his  second  insanity,  he  cries  out  in  agony : 

" '  Vois-tu  d'affreux  serpens,  de  son  front  s'elancer, 
Et  de  leur  longs  replis  te  ceindre,  et  te  presser  ? ' 


8o         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

he  started  back  into  the  posture  of  Laocoon 
with  great  effect.  Like  Demosthenes,  he 
has  had  difficulties  to  overcome,  and  even 
now,  at  times,  he  cannot  conceal  an  unpleas- 
ant lisp;  but  I  have  never  seen  acting,  in 
many  respects,  like  his.  Cooke  had  a  more 
vehement  and  lofty  genius,  and  Kean  has 
sometimes,  perhaps,  flashes  of  eccentric  tal- 
ent; but  in  an  equal  elevation  O'f  mind,  and 
in  dignity  and  force.  Talma,  I  think,  left 
them  all  far  behind." 

As,  at  an  earlier  date,  Garrick  played 
Hamlet  and  Macbeth  in  the  long  waistcoat, 
knee-breeches,  and  shoe-buckles  of  his  own 
time,  so  the  heroes  of  Greece  and  Rome 
were  to  be  seen  on  the  French  stage  of 
Talma's  day  attired  like  the  courtiers  of 
Louis  XIV.  The  study  of  the  antique, 
which  his  friendship  with  the  artist  David 
had  led  Talma  to  make,  convinced  him  of 
the  absurdity  of  this  custom,  and  in  1789, 
when  he  was  elected  a  societaire  of  the  Co- 


Tnlma  as  "  Titus'* 

From  an  old  print 


Talma  8i 

medie  Frangaise,  he  attempted  a  reform. 
"  Brutus  "  was  to  be  given,  and  Talma,  then 
the  youngest  member  of  the  company,  had 
been  cast  for  the  part  of  a  tribune.  "  So 
David  and  Talma  conspired  together,  and 
the  little  plot  succeeded  well  enough,  —  with 
the  public  at  least,  to  whom  a  Roman  trib- 
une, in  a  real  toga  and  with  bare  arms  and 
legs,  was  a  delightful  novelty.  With  the 
other  members  of  the  company,  however,  it 
was  quite  a  different  thing.  Jealous  of  new 
ideas,  imbued  with  the  traditions  of  their 
theatre,  they  were  indignant  at  this  innova- 
tion; the  actresses,  in  particular,  were 
shocked  at  the  unseemly  display  of  arms 
and  legs.  '  Gracious  Heavens ! '  exclaimed 
Mile.  Contat,  with  a  little  scream,  as 
Talma  emerged  from  his  dressing-room, 
ready  to  go  on.  *  How  hideous  he  is !  For 
all  the  world  like  one  of  those  old  statues !  * 
And  a  few  minutes  afterward,  Madame 
Vestris,  who  happened  to  be  on  the  stage 


82         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

in  the  same  scene,  took  an  opportunity  of 
saying  to  him  in  an  undertone :  '  Why, 
Talma,  your  arms  are  bare!'  *  Yes,'  he 
replied,  '  like  the  Romans.'  '  Why,  Talma, 
you  have  no  trousers  on ! '  *  No,  the  Ro- 
mans did  not  wear  them.'  *  Cochon! '  ejac- 
ulated poor  Madame  Vestris,  and  her  feel- 
ings overpowering  her,  she  had  to  go  off 
the  stage.  Even  with  revolution  in  the  air, 
as  it  was  in  1789,  it  took  some  little  time 
to  habituate  Parisian  players  and  playgoers 
to  so  radical  a  change.  The  next  actor,  one 
of  the  old  school,  who  filled  a  similar  part, 
made  great  difficulties  about  donning  the 
toga.  He  was  induced  to  do  so  eventually, 
but  only  on  the  condition  that  two  pockets 
should  be  let  into  the  back  of  the  garment, 
one  of  these  being  for  his  handkerchief,  the 
other  for  his  snuff-box !  " 

No  actor  ever  studied  character  with  more 
care  than  did  Talma,  who  lived  but  for  his 
profession,  and  was  his  own  most  severe 


Talma  83 

critic.  Alexandre  Dumas,  who  always 
mourned  the  fact  that  his  acquaintance  with 
Talma  began  only  in  the  last  year  of  the 
great  actor's  life,  bears  testimony  to  his  ab- 
sorption in  his  art  while  suffering  from  the 
malady  which  finally  killed  him.  He  said: 
"  A  fortnight  before  his  death,  as  he  seemed 
to  have  improved,  and  as  this  improvement 
gave  rise  to  hopes  that  he  might  soon  appear 
again  at  the  Theatre  Francais,  Adolphe 
and  I  paid  him  a  visit. 

"  Talma  was  in  his  bath,  studying  the  Ti- 
berius  of  Lucien  Arnault,  in  which  he  ex- 
pected to  make  his  reentry.  Condemned,  by 
an  inward  complaint,  literally  to  die  of  hun- 
ger, he  had  become  very  meagre;  but  in 
this  very  meagreness  he  felt  a  satisfaction 
and  an  omen  of  success.  '  Eh,  my  sons,* 
said  he,  cheerfully,  drawing  down  his  flabby 
cheeks  with  his  hands,  *  what  a  truthful  air 
this  will  give  to  the  role  of  the  aged  Ti- 
berius! ' " 


84         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Talma  met  Bonaparte  in  1792,  when  the 
young  officer  of  artillery  was  out  of  favor, 
employment,  and  money,  and  did  him  some 
service,  which  was  not  forgotten  in  after 
years.  Napoleon's  well-known  message  to 
the  actor  in  1808 :  "  Come  and  act  at  Erfurt : 
you  shall  play  before  a  pitful  of  kings," 
indicates  the  favor  with  which  the  emperor 
regarded  him.  It  was  said  that  Talma 
taught  Napoleon  to  dress  and  walk  and  play 
the  emperor,  but  he  always  denied  this,  as- 
serting that  Napoleon  was  by  nature  and 
training  the  greater  actor  of  the  two.  The 
emperor's  criticism  of  the  actor's  representa- 
tion of  C(2sar  in  "  La  Mort  de  Pompee  "  is 
suggestive.  He  said  to  Talma :  "  *  You  use 
your  arms  too  much;  rulers  of  empires  are 
not  so  lavish  of  movement ;  they  know  that 
a  gesture  from  them  is  an  order,  and  that  a 
glance  means  death.'  And  again,  of  Nero 
in  *  Brittanicus : '  '  You  should  gesticulate 
less;    and  remember  that  when  persons  of 


Lis  ton  85 

high  position  are  agitated  by  passion,  or 
preoccupied  by  weighty  thoughts,  their  tone 
no  doubt  is  sHghtly  raised,  but  their  speech 
no  less  remains  natural.  You  and  I,  for 
example,  are  at  this  moment  making  his- 
tory, and  yet  we  are  conversing  in  quite  an 
ordinary  way.'  " 


LISTON 

"  His  humor,  on  and  oflf  the  stage,  was  irresistible.'*' 

J.  R.  Planche. 

Liston's  greatest  success  was  in  the  char- 
acter of  Paul  Pry,  in  Poole's  comedy  of  that 
name,  first  performed  at  the  Haymarket  in 
1825.  When  the  part  was  given  to  him, 
he  objected  to  it  on  the  ground  that  it  had 
no  connection  with  the  main  plot  of  the 
piece,  and  appeared  at  rehearsal  imperfect 
in  his  lines  and  undecided  as  to  the  costume. 
Just  then,  a  workman  came  on  the  stage. 


86         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

wearing  a  pair  of  Cossack  trousers,  which, 
the  day  being  wet,  he  had  tucked  into  his 
WelHngton  boots,  and  the  actor  at  once 
adopted  these  features  in  dressing  the  part. 
Our  illustration  of  "  Paul  Pry,"  from  a 
painting  by  Clint,  shows  a  scene  from  the 
second  act,  in  a  room  in  Colonel  Hardy's 
house.  On  the  left  is  Eliza  (played  by  Miss 
Glover),  next  Phehe  (Madame  Vestris), 
then  Colonel  Hardy  (Williams),  and  Paul 
Pry  (Liston).  Harry  Stanley,  Eliza's 
lover,  has  just  been  secreted  in  her  room 
when  Colonel  Hardy  enters,  armed  with  a 
brace  of  pistols,  in  search  of  the  intruder, 
and  insists  upon  hearing  the  truth  from 
Phehe,  who  says : 

"Phehe.  You  are  so  passionate,  sir,  that  even  if 
I  knew —  {Cries  of  Follow,  follow,  and  noise  of 
barking  of  dogs.) 

Pry  {without  window).  Would  you  murder  me, 
you   hard-hearted  monster? 

Hardy.     They  have  him —  they  have  him. 

Pry  {with  one  foot  on  the  window  and  speaking 


Liston  as  "  Paul  Pry'' 

From  painting  by  George  Clint 


ListoH  87 

0^).     Don't  fire.     Tm  a  friend  of  the  family,  I  tell 
you.     Oh,  if  I  do  but  escape  with  my  life. 

{Hardy  points  pistol  at  Pry.) 

Phebe.    Then  we  are  saved  again, 

(Pry  tumbles  in). 

Hardy.  So  this  is  the  second  time  I  have  you. 
Now  what  rigmarole  story  can  you  invent? 

Pry.  Let  me  go  —  there's  a  mistake  —  I'm  not 
the  man  —  I'm  your  friend.  I  was  coming  this  way, 
intending  just  to  drop  in,  when  — 

Hardy.  My  friend,  indeed!  (Places  pistols  on 
table.)  How  dare  any  friend  of  mine  drop  in  at 
the   first-floor   window? 

Pry.  If  you  doubt  my  friendship,  see  what  I  have 
suffered  in  your  service.  (Turns  about  and  shows 
his  clothes  torn.) 

Hardy.     Explain  yourself. 

Pry.  I  have  been  hunted  like  a  stag,  and  nearly 
sacrificed  like  a  heathen,  to  the  fury  of  Jupiter  and 
Bacchus;  and  all  owing  to  a  mistake.  I  saw  a 
strange  man  climb  over  your  wall,  and,  being  nat- 
urally anxious  to  know  what  he  could  want,  I  fol- 
lowed him,  gave  the  alarm,  and  — 

Phebe.  Why,  this  is  the  same  story  he  told  us 
this  morning,  sir. 

Hardy.  And  so  it  is.  —  Why,  this  is  the  same 
story  you  told  me  this  morning.  Harkee,  sir,  if  you 
find  no  better  excuse  for  your  extraordinary  conduct, 
I  shall  forget  you  are  my  neighbor,  act  in  my  quality 
of  magistrate,  and  commit  you  for  the  trespass.  I  find 


88         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

you  entering  my  house  in  a  very  suspicious  man- 
ner— 

Pry.  Well,  if  ever  I  do  a  good-natured  turn 
again —  Let  me  tell  you,  colonel,  that  you  are 
treating  me  like  a  phcenix :   a  thing  I  am  not  used  to. 

Hardy,  What  do  you  mean  by  treating  you  like 
a  phoenix? 

Pry.  Tossing  me  out  of  the  frying-pan  into  the 
fire.  What  I  tell  you  is  true.  I  gave  the  alarm,  but 
the  fellow  was  so  nimble  that  he  escaped :  while  your 
servants,  seeing  me  run  as  if  I  had  been  running  for 
a  wager,  mistook  me  for  the  man,  set  the  dogs  after 
me;  and,  in  short,  I  am  well  off  to  have  escaped 
with  my  life. 

Hardy.  If  this  be  true,  what  has  become  of  the 
other  ?     The  gates  are  closed,  and  — 

Pry.  He's  safe  enough,  I'll  answer  for  it.  Though 
I  could  not  overtake  him,  I  never  lost  sight  of  him. 
(Observing  a  signal  made  by  Phebe.)  Oho!  that 
explains  the  mystery;   some  swain  of  Mrs.  Phebe's. 

Hardy.  What  has  become  of  him,  I  say?  I'll  not 
be  trifled  with  —  you  are  the  only  trespasser  I  dis- 
cover, and  you  I  will  commit,  unless  — 

Pry.  Oh,  if  that's  the  case,  you  need  not  nod  and 
wink  at  me,  ladies;  the  matter  is  growing  serious, 
and  I  have  already  suffered  sufficiently.  He's  here, 
colonel,  I  saw  him  get  in  at  that  window. 

Phebe.  Oh,  the  wretch!  a  likely  story,  a  man  get 
in  at  that  window  and  we  not  see  him;    why,  we 


Lis  ton  89 

have  not  been  out  of  the  room  this  half-hour,  have 
we,    miss? 

Hardy.  Do  you  hear  that  ?  a  likely  story,  indeed ! 
If  you  saw  him,  describe  him. 

Pry.  Describe  him!  how  can  I  describe  him?  I 
tell  you  he  was  running  like  a  greyhound;  he  didn't 
wait  for  me  to  take  his  portrait.  He  got  up  at 
that  window,  and  I'll  swear  he  didn't  get  down 
again,  so  here  he  must  be.  {Walks  up  and  round 
the  stage,  and  looks  under  sofa  and  table.) 

Phebe.  It  is  a  pity,  Mr.  Pry,  you  have  no  business 
of  your  own  to  employ  you.  Ay,  that's  right,  look 
about  here.  You  had  better  search  for  him  in  my 
young  lady's  reticule.  {Snatches  reticule  from 
Eliza.) 

Pry.     Stand  aside,  Mrs.  Phebe,  and  let  me  — 

Phebe.  Why,  you  abominable  person  —  that  is 
Miss  Eliza's  room;  how  dare  you  open  the  door? 
{Throwing  him  round  by  collar.) 

Hardy.  You  abominable  person!  how  dare  you 
open  my  daughter's  room?  {Throwing  him  round 
by  collar.) 

Pry.  If  there's  no  one  concealed  there,  why 
object? 

Hardy.  True,  if  there's  no  one  concealed  there, 
why  object? 

Phebe.  I  wonder,  sir,  you  allow  of  such  an  in- 
sinuation. {Places  herself  at  the  door.)  No  one 
shall    enter   this    room;     we    stand   here   upon   our 


90         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

honor;  and  if  you  suspect  my  young  lady's,  what 
is  to  become  of  mine,  I  should  like  to  know? 

Pry.  Can't  possibly  say;  but  I  would  advise  you 
to  look  after  it,  for  I  protest  —  there  he  is. 

Hardy  {endeavoring  to  suppress  his  anger). 
Sir,  you  are  impertinent.  It  cannot  be,  and  I  desire 
you  will  quit  my  house.    Simon!    {Goes  to  the  door.) 

Enter  Simon. 

Simon,  open  the  door  for  Mr.  Pry. 

Phebe.  Simon,  you  are  to  open  the  door  for  Mr. 
Pry. 

Pry.  Oh,  I  dare  say  Simon  hears.  I  wish  you  a 
very  good  morning  —  I  expected  to  be  asked  to  dinner 
for  this,  at  least  —  this  is  most  mysterious  —  I  say, 
Simon ! 

(Exit,  whispering  to  Simon.)" 

Liston  was  much  addicted  to  playing 
practical  jokes  and  to  making  puns.  At 
one  time,  when  "  Hamlet "  was  the  play, 
and  Mrs.  Stephen  Kemble  was  just  going 
on  the  stage  as  Ophelia  in  her  madness,  he 
handed  her,  instead  of  the  usual  basket  filled 
with  flowers  and  straws,  one  containing 
carrots,  turnips,  onions,  and  other  savory, 


Lis  ton  91 

but  unromantic  vegetables,  and  thus 
equipped,  as  it  was  too  late  to  go  back,  the 
unfortunate  actress  was  compelled  to  finish 
the  scene.  He  once  asked  Mathews  to  play 
for  his  benefit.  Mathews,  having  to  act 
elsewhere  that  night,  excused  himself,  say- 
ing, "  I  would  if  I  could,  but  I  can't  split 
myself  in  halves."  "  I  don't  know  that," 
retorted  Liston,  "  I  have  often  seen  you 
play  in  two  pieces." 

George  Clint,  miniature  painter,  en- 
graver, and  portrait-painter,  was  born  in 
London  in  1770,  and  died  there  in  1854. 
Several  of  his  paintings,  including  the  one 
here  given,  are  in  the  South  Kensington 
Museum,  and  a  number  belong  to  the 
Garrick  Club.  Almost  all  of  these  are  of 
theatrical  subjects,  in  the  representation 
of  which  Clint  was  most  successful.  Kean, 
Munden,  Farren,  Fawcett,  Charles  Kemble, 
and  Mathews,  with  many  others,  were  thus 
painted  by  him. 


92         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 


MADEMOISELLE     MARS 

"The   finest   comic   actress   in   existence."   • 
John  Howard  Payne   (1824). 

Among  the  many  parts  associated  with 
the  genius  of  Mademoiselle  Mars  is  that  of 
Betty  in  Alexandre  Duval's  "  La  Jeunesse 
de  Henri  V."  It  was  at  the  Comedie 
Franqaise  that  she  created  Betty,  in  June, 
1806,  and  during  the  same  month  the  piece 
was  played  before  the  emperor  —  then  rest- 
ing between  Austerlitz  and  Jena  —  at  St. 
Cloud. 

Duval's  comedy  originally  bore  the  name 
of  "  Charles  II."  —  it  has  for  its  subject 
one  of  the  adventures  of  that  merry  mon- 
arch—  but  the  censor,  dreading  possible 
political  allusions  (Charles  being  a  restored 
monarch),  objected,  and  caused  its  title  to 
be  changed  to  "  La  Jeunesse  de  Henri  V." 


Mademoiselle  Mars  93 

This  connection  of  the  play  with  a  king  who 
died  two  hundred  years  before  Charles  was 
born,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  no  other 
alteration  was  made,  of  course  resulted  in 
some  absurd  anachronisms,  as,  for  instance, 
retaining  the  part  of  Rochester,  Charles's 
boon  companion. 

In  1823,  John  Howard  Payne,  aided  by 
Washington  Irving,  made  an  adaptation  of 
Duval's  piece,  restoring  its  original  title, 
and  brought  it  out  in  London  the  following 
year,  with  Charles  Kemble  in  the  character 
of  Charles  IL,  Fawcett  as  Captain  Copp, 
and  Maria  Tree  as  Mary  Copp.  Mary 
Copp,  the  Betty  of  the  original,  is  in 
Payne's  comedy  the  niece  of  an  old  sea- 
captain  who  keeps  a  tavern  in  Wapping, 
whither  Charles  and  Rochester  repair  for 
a  frolic.  Rochester,  however,  has  promised 
Lady  Clara,  in  return  for  her  hand  in  mar- 
riage, to  reform  his  wild  ways  and  also  to 
use  his  influence  with  the  king  to  induce 


94         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

him  to  follow  suit.  The  enterprise  suc- 
ceeds, and  the  play  ends  with  Mary's  be- 
trothal to  Edward,  one  of  the  king's  pages, 
who  has  wooed  her  in  the  guise  of  a  music- 
master.  "  Charles  II.,"  which  was  produced 
at  Covent  Garden,  made  a  great  success. 

Not  long  after  the  time  when  Mademoi- 
selle Mars  acted  Betty  before  Napoleon,  a 
couple  of  comedies,  written  expressly  for 
the  occasion,  with  music  by  Spontini,  were 
to  be  performed  at  Malmaison  in  honor 
of  the  fete-day  of  the  Empress  Josephine. 
The  distinguished  amateurs  to  whom  the 
various  parts  were  entrusted  included  the 
Princesses  Pauline  and  Caroline  Bona- 
parte, the  wives  of  Marshals  Ney  and  Junot, 
and  Junot  himself.  Madame  Junot,  in  her 
"  Memoirs,"  acknowledges  the  aid  she  re- 
ceived on  this  occasion  from  Mademoiselle 
Mars. 

"  My  part,"  she  says,  "  was  in  the  piece 
of  M.  de  Longchamps,  which  was  by  far 


Mademoiselle  Mars  as  '^  Betiy  *' 

From  an  old  print 


Mademoiselle  Mars  95 

the  prettiest.  My  dramatic  skill  was  at 
best  but  indifferent,  and  this  character  quite 
unsuited  to  it.  ...  I  was  quite  certain  of 
failing  in  my  performance,  a  circumstance 
probably  very  desirable  to  others,  but  quite 
the  reverse  to  myself.  I  therefore  requested 
Mademoiselle  Mars,  if  she  had  a  few  min- 
utes to  spare,  would  have  the  goodness  to 
hear  me  rehearse;  and  by  the  more  than 
urbanity  with  which  she  complied,  rehears- 
ing with  me  unweariedly  every  morning 
during  the  fortnight  that  elapsed  before  the 
appointed  fete,  I  had  an  opportunity  (of 
which  I  perhaps  stupidly  availed  myself  far 
more  effectually  than  of  her  lessons)  of  ad- 
miring the  play  of  her  pliant  and  charming 
features;  her  expressive  smile  conveying 
some  idea  while  it  disclosed  her  pearly 
teeth,  and  those  beaming  eyes,  which,  in 
accordance  with  the  smile,  revealed  the 
coming  sentiment  before  it  could  find  utter- 
ance.    Hearing  her  thus  in  a  private  room, 


96         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

divested  of  all  that  delusive  attraction 
which  the  lights,  the  public  plaudits,  the 
whole  witchery  of  the  scene  cast  around 
an  actress  on  the  stage,  I  mentally  ex- 
claimed, '  This  is  the  greatest  actress  in  the 
world !  she  is  pursuing  her  natural  vocation. 
Here  is  no  appearance  of  acting,  it  must 
therefore  be  the  perfection  of  the  art/ 
From  that  moment  I  became  a  declared  and 
enthusiastic  admirer  of  Mademoiselle  Mars, 
and  considered  it  a  real  public  misfortune 
that  she  refused  to  receive  pupils. 

"  In  these  interviews  I  had  equal  reason  to 
appreciate  the  tone  of  her  conversation,  her 
excellent  judgment,  and  her  good  taste;  I 
found  in  Mademoiselle  Mars  everything 
that  could  constitute  a  woman  formed  to 
shine  and  please  in  the  very  best  society." 

Fanny  Kemble  paid  the  following  tribute 
to  Mademoiselle  Mars: 

"  To  my  great  regret  and  loss,  I  saw 
Mademoiselle  Mars  only  in  two  parts,  when. 


Mademoiselle  Mars  97 

in  the  autumn  of  her  beauty  and  powers, 
she  played  a  short  eng-agement  in  London. 
The  grace,  the  charm,  the  loveUness,  which 
she  retained  far  into  middle  age,  were,  even 
in  their  decline,  enough  to  justify  all  that 
her  admirers  said  of  her  early  incomparable 
fascination.  Her  figure  had  grown  large 
and  her  face  become  round,  and  lost  their 
fine  outline  and  proportion,  but  the  ex- 
quisite taste  of  her  dress  and  graceful 
dignity  of  her  deportment,  and  sweet 
radiance  of  her  expressive  countenance, 
were  still  indescribably  charming;  and  the 
voice,  unrivalled  in  its  fresh,  melodious 
brilliancy,  and  the  pure  and  perfect  enun- 
ciation, were  unimpaired,  and  sounded  like 
the  clear  liquid  utterance  of  a  young  girl  of 
sixteen.  Her  Celimene  and  her  Elmire  I 
never  had  the  good  fortune  to  see,  but  can 
imagine  from  her  performance  of  the  hero- 
ine in  Casimir  de  la  Vigne's  capital  play  of 
*  L'Ecole  des  Vieillards,'  how  well  she  must 


98         The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

have  deserved  her  unrivalled  reputation  in 
those  parts.  ... 

"Dr.  Gueneau  de  Mussy,  who  knew  her 
well,  and  used  to  see  her  very  frequently 
in  her  later  years  of  retirement  from  the 
stage,  told  me  that  he  had  often  heard  her 
read,  among  other  things,  the  whole  play  of 
'  Le  Tartuffe,'  and  that  the  coarse  flippancy 
of  the  honest-hearted  Dorine,  and  the 
stupid  stolidity  of  the  dupe  Orgon,  and  the 
vulgar,  gross,  sensual  hypocrisy  of  the  Tar- 
tuffe, were  all  rendered  by  her  with  the  same 
incomparable  truth  and  effect  as  her  own 
famous  part  of  the  heroine  of  the  piece, 
Elmire.  On  one  of  the  very  last  occasions 
of  her  appearing  before  her  own  Parisian 
audience,  when  she  had  passed  the  limit 
at  which  it  was  possible  for  a  woman  of  her 
advanced  age  to  assume  the  appearance  of 
youth,  the  part  she  was  playing  requiring 
that  she  should  exclaim,  *  Je  suis  jeune! 
je  suis  jolie!'    a  loud,   solitary  hiss  pro- 


Mademoiselle  Mars  99 

tested  against  the  assertion  with  bitter  sig- 
nificance. After  an  instant's  consternation, 
which  held  both  the  actors  and  audience 
silent,  she  added,  with  the  exquisite  grace 
and  dignity  which  survived  the  youth  and 
beauty  to  which  she  could  no  longer  even 
pretend,  *  Je  suis  Mademoiselle  Mars ! '  and 
the  whole  house  broke  out  in  acclamations, 
and  rang  with  the  applause  due  to  what  the 
incomparable  artiste  still  was,  and  the 
memory  of  all  that  she  had  been." 

As  a  final  testimony  to  the  merits  of  this 
exquisite  comedienne,  I  quote  from  Madame 
Junot's  "  Memoirs  "  an  interesting  anecdote 
which  brings  together  the  great  queen  of 
French  tragedy,  Hippolyte  Clairon,  and 
Mademoiselle  Mars. 

"  I  saw  her  occasionally.  She  was  fond 
of  me,  but  Talma  and  Mademoiselle  Mars 
caused  perpetual  disputes  between  us.  I 
was  angry,  because,  as  she  did  not  see  their 
performance,   she  could  not  appreciate  all 


lOO       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

the  talent  of  these  two  beings  endowed  from 
above  with  dramatic  genius.  Talma  might 
be  criticized,  but  Mademoiselle  Mars  was 
even  then  a  diamond  of  the  first  water,  with- 
out spot  or  defect.  At  length  I  was  one  day 
much  surprised  to  find  my  old  friend  quite 
softened  toward  my  favorite  actress;  and 
never  could  attribute  the  sudden  change 
to  any  other  cause  than  her  having  seen 
Mademoiselle  Mars  in  one  of  her  characters  ; 
she  did  not  admit  it,  but  I  am  almost  certain 
of  the  fact.  I  had  spoken  so  much  of  her 
that  it  was  scarcely  possible  she  should  not 
wish  to  see  her  to  judge  for  herself.  In 
*  The  Pupil,'  Mademoiselle  Mars,  in  the 
simple  action  of  letting  fall  a  nosegay,  un- 
veils at  once  the  secret  of  a  young  heart. 
This  fact,  so  striking  to  the  feelings,  is  at 
the  same  time  one  which  could  not  be  de- 
scribed, and  yet  Mademoiselle  Clairon  spoke 
to  me  of  this  action  as  if  she  had  seen  it; 
nor  do  I  think  that  she  would  have  im- 


bibed  from  any  other  source  opinions 
sufficiently  strong  to  overcome  her  preju- 
dices, though  I  know  that  an  old  M.  An- 
toine,  a  friend  of  Lekain,  gave  her  frequent 
accounts  of  all  that  passed  at  the  Comedie 
Frangaise.  I  have,  however,  no  doubt  that 
she  had  been  carried  thither  herself  in  a 
sedan-chair,  and  had  seen  and  admired  our 
charming  actress." 


KEAN 

"Just  returned  from  seeing  Kean  in  Richard.  By 
Jove,  he  is  a  soul!  Life  —  nature  —  truth,  without 
exaggeration  or  diminution.  Kemble's  Hamlet  is 
perfect,  but  Hamlet  is  not  nature.  Richard  is  a 
man,    and    Kean    is    Richard." 

Byron  to  Moore   (1814). 

The  part  of  Richard  III.  seems  to  have 
been  associated  with  Kean  from  his  earliest 
days.  Mrs.  Charles  Kemble  was  wont  to 
relate  the  following  anecdote  about  him: 


i62 '    '  Tk^  Great  'Masters  of  the  Drama 

"  One  morning,  before  the  rehearsal  com- 
menced, I  was  crossing  the  stage  when  my 
attention  was  attracted  to  the  sounds  of  loud 
applause  issuing  from  the  direction  of  the 
greenroom.  I  inquired  the  cause,  and  was 
told  that  it  was  '  only  little  Kean  reciting 
Richard  III.  in  the  greenroom.'  My  in- 
formant said  that  he  was  very  clever.  I 
went  into  the  greenroom  and  saw  the  little 
fellow  facing  an  admiring  group  and  re- 
citing lustily.  I  listened,  and  in  my  opinion 
he  was  very  clever." 

Speaking  of  a  time  not  much  later,  Haw- 
kins, one  of  his  biographers,  says :  "  Of 
all  the  Shakespearian  characters  which 
Edmund  studied  at  this  time,  no  one  appears 
to  have  engaged  so  large  a  share  of  his 
attention  as  Richard  III.  Upon  the  very 
spirit  and  essence  of  this  character  his  al- 
ready strong  conceptive  power  fastened  from 
the  very  first  with  swift,  sure,  and  unerring 
instinct;    and,  if  we  receive  the  testimony 


Kean  103 

of  Miss  Tidswell,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
even  at  thirteen  years  of  age  he  had  arrived 
at  a  fine  comprehension  and  briUiant  realiza- 
tion of  the  crook-back  king.  His  rehearsals 
v^^ere  almost  unintermittent.  At  one  time  he 
might  have  been  found  practising  the  court- 
ship scene  in  a  garret  in  the  house  of  a 
bookseller  named  Roach,  situate  in  a  court 
running  from  Brydges  Street  to  Drury 
Lane,  Lady  Anne  being  represented  by  a 
'  Scotch  lassie,'  v^ho  subsequently  acquired 
some  distinction  as  the  successor  to  Mrs. 
Davenport  in  the  line  of  characters  v^hich 
belonged  to  the  latter,  at  a  theatre  in 
Scotland  —  Mrs.  Robertson ;  at  another  v^e 
find  him  rehearsing  the  combat  scene  in  Mrs. 
Price's  back  parlor  in  Green  Street,  to  the 
Richmond  of  Master  Rae,  the  son  of  the 
matron  at  St.  George's  Hospital,  the  man- 
tua-maker's  yard-measures  serving  for  the 
swords  of  the  furious  antagonists  on  the 
agitated  field   of   Bosworth." 


104       '^^^  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

When  about  fifteen  years  old,  Kean,  while 
travelling  with  Richardson's  company,  was 
honored  by  a  command  to  recite  before 
George  III.  at  Windsor,  and  his  rendering 
of  portions  of  "  Richard  III."  and  others 
of  Shakespeare's  plays,  was  much  approved 
by  his  Majesty. 

Ten  years  later,  after  experiencing  an 
even  greater  number  of  "  ups  and  downs  " 
than  generally  fell  to  the  lot  of  a  strolling 
player  in  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  —  at  times  very  near  starvation, 
and  at  others  playing  Richard  and  Harle- 
quin on  the  same  night,  for  the  princely 
salary  of  twenty-five  shillings  a  week 
(Harlequin  usually  meeting  with  most  ac- 
ceptance) —  Kean  found  himself,  in  the 
spring  of  1813,  in  Guernsey.  He  was  now 
twenty-five  years  of  age. 

On  his  first  appearance  in  the  island,  he 
played  Hamlet,  which  performance  was 
harshly  criticized  by  the  local  journal. 


Kean  105 

"  The  effect  of  this  stricture  upon  the 
unruly  and  indiscriminating  rabble  which 
usually  graced  the  interior  of  the  Guernsey 
theatre,  may  be  readily  conceived.  Too 
courageous  to  bow  before  the  inevitable 
tempest,  Kean  made  his  appearance  in 
Richard  III,  Shouts  of  derisive  laugh- 
ter, followed  by  a  storm  of  sibilation,  broke 
from  all  parts  of  the  house  as  he  came  on 
the  stage.  For  a  time  his  patience  was  proof 
against  an  opposition  which  he  hoped  to 
subdue  by  the  merits  of  his  acting,  but  as 
no  sign  of  abatement  appeared,  he  boldly 
advanced  to  the  front,  and  with  an  eye  that 
seemed  to  emit  bright  and  deadly  flashes, 
applied  to  them  with  tremendous  emphasis 
the  words  of  his  part: 

"  *  Unmannered  dogs,  stand  ye  when  I  command.* 

"  For  a  moment  the  audience  were  taken 
aback  by  this  unexpected  resistance ;  all  be- 
came as  noiseless  as  the  gathering  storm 


io6       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

before  the  tempest,  and  the  clamor  only 
revived  when  a  stalwart  fellow  in  his  shirt- 
sleeves yelled  out  from  the  back  of  the  pit 
a  demand  for  an  '  apology.'  *  Apology ! ' 
cried  the  little  man  —  and  his  form  dilated 
with  excitement  — '  take  it  from  this  re- 
mark: The  only  proof  of  intelligence  you 
have  yet  given  is  in  the  proper  application 
of  the  words  I  have  just  uttered.' 

"  The  uproar  which  succeeded  this  retort 
rendered  the  interference  of  the  manager 
imperative.  Kean  was  hurried  off  the  stage, 
and  the  part  given  to  an  outsider,  immeasur- 
ably less  talented  than  his  predecessor,  but 
who  stood  high  in  favor  with  the  discerning 
and  enlightened  audience  in  front." 

But,  despite  such  happenings  as  this,  the 
time  was  near  at  hand  when  the  genius  of 
Edmund  Kean  was  to  be  recognized  in  full. 
In  the  following  November,  he  was  engaged 
by  Arnold,  the  manager  of  Drury  Lane,  who 


Kean  107 

had  seen  him  play  Octavian  in  "  The  Moun- 
taineers," at  Dorchester. 

Appearing  first  at  Drury  Lane  on  January 
22,  1 81 4,  in  Shy  lock,  with  the  greatest  suc- 
cess, "  Kean  was  now  called  upon  to  dissolve 
the  association  oi  Garrick's  name  with  the 
interpretation  of  Richard  III.  In  this 
object,  according  to  honest  John  Bannister, 
who  somewhat  reluctantly  admitted  that  in 
the  brilliance  of  Kean's  Richard,  he  almost 
forgot  his  old  master  David,  he  was  com- 
pletely successful ;  and  the  masterly  manner 
in  which  he  represented  the  last  of  the  Plan- 
tagenets  achieved  a  triumph  second  only 
to  that  which  he  subsequently  won  in 
Othello  and  Lear."  Mrs.  Richard  Trench 
wrote  in  her  "  Correspondence :  "  "He 
gave  probability  to  the  drama  by  throwing 
the  favorable  light  of  Richard's  higher 
qualities  on  the  character,  particularly  in  the 
scene  with  Lady  Anne.''  Hawkins  speaks 
of  "  the  scene  with  Lady  Anne,  the  nau- 


io8       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

seousness  of  which  had  been  much  increased 
by  Kemble  and  Ccx)ke;  the  former  whined 
it  in  a  way  not  at  all  attractive  to  the  ear, 
the  latter  was  harsh,  coarse,  and  unkingly. 
Not  so  Kean.  An  enchanting  smile  played 
upon  his  lips;  a  courteous  humility  bowed 
his  head ;  his  voice,  though  hoarse  with  cold, 
was  yet  modulated  to  a  tone  which  no  com- 
mon female  mind  ever  did  or  ever  could 
resist.  Gentle,  yet  self -respected,  insinuat- 
ing, yet  determined,  humble,  yet  overawing, 
he  presented  an  exterior  by  which  the  mere 
human  senses  must,  from  their  very  con- 
stitution, be  subjected  and  enthralled^ 
Cooke  in  this  scene  was  anxious,  hurried, 
and  uncertain;  but  Kean's  love-making 
was  confident,  easy,  and  unaffected,  earnest 
and  expressive,  and  managed  with  such 
exquisite  skill  that  a  close  observer  might 
have  distinguished  it  from  real  tenderness, 
however  well  calculated  to  have  imposed 
on  the  credulity  of  Lady  Anne," 


Edmund  Kean  as  ''  "Richard  III.' 

From  painting  by  George  Clint 


Macready  109 

Hazlitt  said :  "  It  was  an  admirable  ex- 
hibition of  smooth  and  smiHng  villainy," 
and  George  Henry  Lewes,  who  did  not  see 
Kean  until  years  later,  wrote :  "  Who  can 
ever  forget  the  exquisite  grace  with  which 
he  leaned  against  the  side-scene  while 
Anne  was  railing  at  him,  and  the  chuckling 
mirth  of  his  *  Poor  fool !  what  pains  she 
takes  to  damn  herself ! '  It  was  thoroughly 
feline  —  terrible,  yet  beautiful." 

Kean  played  Richard  twenty-five  times 
during  his  first  season  at  Drury  Lane, 
Shy  lock  fifteen  times. 

MACREADY 

"  Farewell,  Macready ;    since  this  night  we  part. 
Go,  take  thine  honors  home :   rank  with  the  best, 
Garrick,  and  statelier  Kemble,  and  the  rest 
Who  made  a  nation  purer  thro'  their  art." 

Tennyson. 

Kean  was  present  at  Macready's  debut 
on  the  London  stage,  which  took  place  at 


no       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Covent  Garden  in  Sq)tember,,  1816,  the  play 
being  the  "  Distressed  Mother."  In  this, 
Macready  performed  Orestes,  and  Kean 
"  honestly  avowed  that  he  had  never  seen 
such  a  complete  representation  of  the  char- 
acter." 

One  of  Macready's  finest  impersonations 
—  perhaps  his  best  —  was  Werner,  in 
Byron's  tragedy  of  that  name,  brought  out 
in  1830.  This  work,  written  in  Italy,  and 
published  in  1822,  is  taken  entirely  from  a 
story  entitled  "  The  German's  Tale,"  which 
forms  one  of  Lee's  "  Canterbury  Tales." 
The  main  idea  of  this  gloomy  work  is  the 
horror  of  an  erring  father,  who,  detected  in 
wrong  by  his  son,  has  defended  his  sin,  and 
thus  weakened  the  son's  notions  of  right,  on 
finding  that  the  latter  has  committed  the 
crime  of  murder. 

The  veteran  playwright  and  poet.  West- 
land  Marston,  gives  us,  among  his  recollec- 
tions of  actors,   an  excellent  summary  of 


Macready  ill 

Macready's  acting  as  Werner.  He  says: 
"  Amiable  censors  have  not  been  wanting 
to  allege  that  his  success  in  Werner  was 
chiefly  due  to  the  resemblance  between  the 
hero  of  the  drama  and  himself  in  point  of 
morbid  pride  and  sensitiveness.  This  theory, 
however,  by  no  means  accounts  for  the  im- 
pressive melancholy  which  he  wore  when 
Werner's  honors  were  restored,  or  above 
all,  for  that  display  of  a  father's  love  and 
agony  in  the  fifth  act,  which  must  be  ranked 
amongst  his  supreme  effects.  But  to  what- 
ever cause  his  exhibition  of  pride  and  bitter, 
querulous  impatience,  in  the  first  act,  were 
due,  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  their  being 
more  intense  and  incisive.  The  rising  of  the 
curtain  discovered  the  fugitive  nobleman, 
indignant  at  his  cruel  fate,  stalking  to  and 
fro  like  some  captured  wild  animal  in  his 
cage.  The  gaunt  look  of  recent  sickness 
was  in  his  face,  the  fretful  irritability  which 
it  causes  repeatedly  broke  forth,  spite  of  his 


112       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

affection  for  his  wife,  in  his  tones  and 
gestures ;  while,  through  the  veil  of  poverty, 
disease,  and  mental  suffering,  gleamed  a  for- 
lorn haughtiness  O'f  bearing  which  bespoke 
his  ineradicable  pride  of  birth.  The  quick 
apprehensions  and  suspicions  which  spring 
from  nerves  wasted  alike  with  disease  and 
grief,  were  admirably  conveyed,  first,  by  his 
alarm  when  he  hears  the  knocking  of  the 
intendant,  and  again,  by  the  air  of  feline 
wariness  and  distrust  with  which  he  scanned 
Gabor  on  his  entrance  and  subsequently.  At 
length  Stralenheim  enters,  who  seeks  to 
usurp  IVerne/s  domain,  and,  for  that  evil 
end,  to  secure  his  person.  Werner  at  once 
recognizes  him,  and  the  former  has  at 
length  a  dim  suspicion  that  the  man  before 
him  is  his  intended  victim.  When,  at  length, 
Stralenheim  turns  to  him,  after  conversing 
with  the  intendant  and  Gabor,  the  furtive 
and  apprehensive  gaze  with  which  Macready 
had  watched  his  oppressor,  gave  way  to  irre- 


Macready  as  "  Werner'' 

From  painting  by  ,E)aniel  Maclise 


Macready  113 

pressible  hatred.  Nothing  could  be  more 
curtly  repellant  than  his  tones,  in  answer 
to  Stralenheim's  questions : 


'*'Stral.    Have  you  been  here  long? 

Wer.   {with  abrupt  surprise).    Long? 

Stral.  I  sought 

An  answer,  not  an  echo. 

Wer.  {rapidly  and  morosely).  You  may  seek 
Both  from  the  walls;  I  am  not  used  to  answer 
Those  whom  I  know  not.' 


"  A  little  later,  when  Stralenkeim  observes, 
*Your  language  is  above  your  station,'  Wer- 
ner's  answer,  '  Is  it  ?  '  contained  a  transition 
from  ironical  humility  to  scorn  and  loathing, 
which  it  was  surprising  so  brief  a  phrase 
could  express.  Not  less  striking,  when  he 
feared  his  passion  might  betray  him,  was  the 
sudden  change,  in  the  words  that  follow, 
to  rude  and  caustic  indifference: 

"  *  'Tis  well  that  it  is  not  beneath  it, 

As  sometimes  happens  to  the  better  clad.* 


114       The  'Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

"  In  the  second  act,  it  will  be  remembered 
that  Werner,  made  desperate  by  the  plain 
suspicions  of  Stralenheim,  who  has  power  to 
arrest  and  imprison  him,  commits  a  robbery 
on  his  foe,  in  the  dead  of  night,  to  gain  the 
means  of  escape.  Subsequently,  Werner  and 
his  wife  are  discovered  by  their  long-lost 
son,  XJlrk.  The  joy  of  the  parents  has 
scarcely  found  utterance  when  IJlric  tells 
them  that  he  had,  on  the  previous  day,  saved 
the  life  of  Stralenheim,  and  that  he  is  now 
in  quest  of  the  villain  who  had  robbed  him. 
To  give  any  conception  of  Macready's  act- 
ing at  this  point,  I  must  quote  the  dialogue : 


"'Wer.    (agitatedlyh  Who 

Taught  you  to  mouth  that  name  of  "  villain  ?  " 

Ulr.  What 

More  noble  name  belongs  to  common  thieves? 

Wer.    Who  taught  you  thus  to  brand  an  unknown 
being 
With  an  infernal  stigma? 

Ulr.  My  own  feelings 

Taught  me  to  name  a  ruffian  from  his  deeds. 


Macready  115 

Wer.    Who  taught  you,  long-sought  and  ill-found 
boy!  that 
It  would  be  safe  for  my  own  son  to  insult  me? 

IJlr.    I  named  a  villain.    What  is  there  in  common 
With  such  a  being  and  my  father? 

Wer.  Everything ! 

That  ruffian  is  thy  father. 

Jos.  Oh,  my  son! 

Believe  him  not  —  and  yet! —  {Her  voice  falters.) 

Ulr.   (starts,  looks  earnestly  at  Werner^  and  then 

says  slowly).  And  you  avow  it? 

Wer.      Ulric!      Before    you    dare    despise    your 

father, 
Learn  to  divine  and  judge  his  actions.     Young, 
Rash,  new  to  life,  and  reared  in  luxury's  lap, 
Is  it  for  you  to  measure  passion's  force. 
Or   misery's   temptation  ?     Wait  —  (not   long. 
It  Cometh  like  the  night,  and  quickly)  —  Wait !  — 
Wait  till,  like  me,  your  hopes  are  blighted  —  till 
Sorrow  and  shame  are  handmaids  of  your  cabin; 
Famine  and  poverty  your  guests  at  table ; 
Despair  your  bedfellow  —  then  rise,  but  not 
From    sleep,    and    judge!      Should    that    day    e'er 

arrive  — 
Should  you  see  then  the  serpent  who  hath  coiled 
Himself  around  all  that  is  dear  and  noble 
Of  you  and  yours,  lie  slumbering  in  your  path. 
With  but  his  folds  between  your  steps  and  happiness, 
When  he,  who  lives  but  to  tear  from  you  name. 
Lands,  life  itself,  lies  at  your  mercy,  with 


1 1 6       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Chance  your  conductor;    midnight  for  your  mantle; 

The  bare  knife  in  your  hand,  and  earth  asleep, 

Even  to  your  deadliest  foe;    and  he,  as  'twere, 

Inviting  death,  by  looking  like  it,  while 

His  death  alone  can  save  you :  —  Thank  your  God ! 

If  then,  like  me  content  with  petty  plunder. 

You  turn  aside  —  /  did  so !  * 


"  From  the  cry  of  remonstrance  with 
which  the  above  passage  opens,  even  to  its 
close,  what  a  complexity  of  emotions  strug- 
gling and,  at  the  same  time,  blending  with 
each  other,  did  Macready  portray!  The 
strife  between  wrathful  pride  and  agony,  at 
having  to  confess  and  extenuate  his  guilt  to 
his  idolized  and  just-regained  son;  the  in- 
creasing and,  at  last,  breathless  rapidity  with 
which  he  piled  up  the  circumstances  of  his 
desperate  temptation  and  venial  sin;  till, 
finally,  pride,  self-abasement,  and  self-vindi- 
cation were  swallowed  up  and  swept  away 
by  a  master-touch  of  paternal  love  and 
anguish,  as  shaken,  convulsed,  with  ex- 
tended arms  and  bowed  head,  he  appealed 


Macready  ll7 

to  IJlrk  with  the  words,  'I  did  so ! '  All 
these,  with  their  harrowing  pathos  and 
subduing  power,  live  in  my  memory  as  if 
they  were  of  yesterday.  More  than  forty 
years  have  not  weakened  their  effect. 

"  The  bald  tale,  in  the  third  act,  of  Stra- 
lenheim's  murder  by  an  unknown  hand,  of 
Werner's  dread  lest  he  should  be  suspected 
of  the  crime,  and  of  his  escape  from  the 
spot,  supply  little  that  is  of  dramatic  inter- 
est. The  fourth  act,  also,  which  shows 
Werner  restored  to  his  estates  and  to  his 
title  of  Count  Siegendorf,  moves  slowly 
and  eventlessly.  .  .  .  The  fifth  act,  however, 
brings  the  great  situation  of  the  tragedy, 
when  Gahor,  suspected  by  Werner  of  being 
the  murderer  of  Stralenheim,  asserts  that 
Ulric  is  the  guilty  one.  Ulric  confesses 
the  deed  and  defends  it,  saying  to  his 
father : 

" '  If  you  condemn   me,   yet 
Remember  who  hath  taught  me,  once  too  often, 


ilS       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

To  listen  to  him !     Who  proclaimed  to  me 
That   there  were  crimes  made  venial  by  the  occa- 
sion?'" 


Marston  says :  "  The  greatness  of 
Macready's  acting  here  reached  its  cHmax." 

Maclise's  picture  of  Macready  as  Werner 
depicts  him  in  the  beginning  of  the  first  act. 

The  painter,  bom  in  Ireland  in  1811, 
went  to  London  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  and 
studied  in  the  Royal  Academy  schools.  He 
was  but  two  years  older  when  his  '*  Mal- 
volio  "  was  hung  on  the  walls  of  the  Acad- 
emy, of  which  body  he  was  made  a  full 
member  in  1840.  Dying  in  1870,  after  de- 
clining the  presidency  of  the  Royal  Acad- 
emy, he  left  behind  him  many  important 
works,  notably  the  great  frescoes  of  "  The 
Death  of  Nelson "  and  "  The  Meeting  of 
Wellington  and  Bliicher  after  Waterloo,"  in 
the  Houses  of  Parliament.  His  paintings  of 
"  The  Banquet  Scene  in  '  Macbeth  '  "  and 
"  The  Play  Scene  in  '  Hamlet '  "  are  famous. 


Dijazet  119 


DEJAZET 

"By  those  who  have  seen  her,  not  one  trait  in 
her  matchless  representations  will  ever  be  forgot- 
ten." "Gossip  of  the  Century." 

Has  any  equally  famous  actress  a  record 
as  extraordinary  as  that  of  Madame  Deja- 
zet,  who,  making  her  first  appearance  on  the 
boards  at  the  age  of  five,  did  not  leave  them 
for  seventy  years?  Born  in  1797  or  1798 
(authorities  differ),  she  retired  from  the 
stage  in  1874,  but,  being  as  generous  as 
she  was  gifted,  returned  to  it  for  one  night, 
in  October,  1875,  to  aid  in  a  benefit  given 
to  a  needy  actor,  and  died  on  the  first  day 
of  December  in  that  year. 

An  able  American  critic,  Edward  H. 
House,  wrote  of  her  in  1867  •  "  I>  ^^  course, 
had  not  the  opportunity  of  seeing  Dejazet 
in  her  best  days,  but  I  am  told,  and  indeed 


1 20       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

it  is  evident,  that  she  preserves  the  chief 
characteristics  of  her  style  to  the  present 
time.  What  that  style  is  it  is  by  no  means 
easy  to  describe.  She  is  undoubtedly  a  soii- 
brette,  but  to  those  who  are  familiar  only 
with  the  American  or  English  stage,  the 
term  soubrette  is  synonymous  with  that  of 
*  singing  chambermaid,'  and  suggests  noth- 
ing beyond  the  boisterousness,  the  profu- 
sion, and  the  riotous  excesses  of  action  and 
manner  which  are  good-humoredly  ac- 
cepted by  our  easy  public,  but  which  are 
at  best  very  low  methods  of  theatrical  ex- 
pression; although  in  exceptional  cases, 
like  that  of  Mrs.  John  Wood,  they  may  be 
made  effective  and  profitable.  The  French 
soubrette  is  a  very  different  and  a  very 
superior  being  under  any  circumstances,  but 
it  was  Dejazet  who  first  conceived  the  idea 
of  elevating  her  considerably  above  the 
French  standard,  as  she  found  it  fifty  years 
ago.    At  the  outset  of  her  career,  it  was  evi- 


D^jazet  1 2 1 

dent  that  she  had  resolved  to  relieve  at  least 
her  own  roles  from  their  weig^ht  of  heavy 
humor,  and  to  decorate  them  with  all  the 
delicacy  and  lightness  which  they  could 
properly  receive.  She  was  so  successful  in 
this  endeavor,  with  characters  already  ac- 
cepted by  and  familiar  to  the  public,  that 
in  a  short  time  she  had  persuaded  many 
of  the  best  authors  of  the  day  to  remodel 
their  works  to  harmonize  with  her  new  in- 
terpretations, and  presently  to  write  with 
exclusive  view  to  the  development  of  the 
new  and  captivating  style  she  had  estab- 
lished. From  that  moment  the  Dejazet  sou- 
brette  was  a  line  of  character  sui  generis. 
Thoroughly  French,  in  the  best  artistic 
sense,  its  imitation  has  hardly  been  at- 
tempted by  actresses  of  other  countries.  In 
fact,  to  make  it  successful,  the  best  natural 
French  qualities  of  spirit,  grace,  and  refine- 
ment are  indispensable.  The  person  who, 
in  England,  can  most  nearly  approach  the 


122       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Dejazet  standard  is  probably  Miss  Marie 
Wilton,  although  she  usually  finds  it  con- 
venient to  confine  herself  to  a  lower  level. 
Some  delightful  indications  of  ability  in  the 
same  direction  were  given  here,  years  ago, 
by  Miss  Agnes  Robertson  at  the  beginning 
of  her  American  career;  but  she  was  ad- 
dicted to  occasional  bursts  of  sentiment,  an 
element  which  does  not  enter  largely  into  the 
Dejazet  composition.  Perhaps,  after  all, 
the  pleasantest  illustrations  of  the  French 
artist's  manner  have  been  given,  uncon- 
sciously, O'f  course,  by  Mrs.  John  Drew,  in 
her  naive  representations  of  young  men  and 
lads,  —  a  line  which  this  lady  appears  now 
to  have  abandoned. 

"  The  esteem  in  which  Dejazet  is  held  by 
the  Parisians  long  ago  ceased  to  be  based 
on  artistic  considerations  alone.  It  is  im- 
possible to  overstate  the  personal  fondness 
with  which  she  is  regarded  by  the  habitues 
of  her  theatre,  and^  indeed,  by  the  public 


D^jazet  123 

generally.  Much  of  the  tenderness  shown 
her  is  perhaps  due  to  her  age,  —  she  is  well 
past  seventy,  and  shows  few  signs  of  being 
burdened  by  her  years,  —  and  more,  un- 
doubtedly, to  the  reputation  which  has 
accompanied  her  through  life,  of  her  amia- 
bility, her  benevolence,  and  her  strict  pro- 
fessional integrity.  Her  friends  declare 
that  throughout  her  fifty  or  sixty  years  of 
public  service  she  has  gained  nothing  but 
the  affection  of  those  who  surrounded  her; 
and  they  add,  indeed,  that  this  is  true  in  a 
literal  sense,  owing  to  her  profuse  charities 
in  youth,  and  her  inability  to  resist,  even 
now,  the  appeals  which  are  too  frequently 
urged  for  her  sympathy  and  aid.  Whatever 
may  be  the  causes,  it  is  certain  that  no  one 
else  upon  the  Paris  stage  is  petted  and  ca- 
ressed as  she  is.  Anybody  who  has  ob- 
served the  fervor  with  which,  during  the 
last  few  years,  every  appearance  of  that  fine 
old  actor,   Mr.   Holland,  has  been  greeted 


1 24       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

by  New  York  audiences,  may  understand 
the  spirit  in  which  Dejazet's  welcomes  are 
offered;  but,  to  the  extent  of  their  hearti- 
ness, even  Mr.  Holland's  receptions  afford 
no  parallel.  She  is  the  oldest  member  of 
her  craft,  and  has  been  the  best  in  her  own 
line.  In  some  respects,  moreover,  she  ac- 
tually remains  the  best.  It  is  pleasant  to 
review  the  incidents  of  a  career  so  uninter- 
rupted in  brilliancy  and  popularity,  and 
which  has  never  been  disturbed,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  by  any  circumstance  whose 
recollection  either  the  public  or  the  artist 
would  wish  to  obliterate.  .  .  . 

"  It  was  about  ten  years  ago  that  I  first 
saw  Dejazet,  and  she  was  then  somewhat 
beyond  the  age  of  sixty.  It  was  the  first 
night  of  her  resumption  of  '  Gen  til  Ber- 
nard,' and  half  the  fauteuils  were  filled  with 
the  best-known  representatives  of  literature 
and  art.  Most  eager  among  these,  I  remem- 
ber,   was   Victorien    Sardou,   who   at   that 


Madame  TiejaT^et  as  the  "  Prince  de  Conii" 

From  drawing  by  Edward  Hughes 


TiU   OrSEA    COHIQl-I 


D^jazet  125 

time  lost  no  opportunity  of  testifying  his 
gratitude  to  the  friend  who  had  exerted 
herself  so  assiduously  in  assisting  him  to 
the  position  he  had  recently  gained.  .  .  . 
On  the  evening  in  question,  Dejazet's  recep- 
tion was  an  event  to  be  remembered.  Her 
first  step  upon  the  scene  was  the  signal  for 
loud  outcries  of  welcome,  not  only  from 
orchestra  and  parterre,  but  also  from  the 
more  decorous  boxes,  whence  proceeded 
shrill  feminine  tones,  agreeably  diversifying 
the  chorus.  Hats  and  handkerchiefs  were 
waved,  and  for  five  minutes  the  business 
of  the  stage  was  suspended  in  order  that 
the  audience  might  have  its  jubilee  out. 
And  when  quiet  at  last  returned,  it  was 
curious  to  observe  how  the  house  continued 
to  beam  with  silent,  though  not  less  express- 
ive, delight  at  the  reappearance  of  the  dear 
old  favorite.  On  all  sides  little  phrases  of 
compliment  and  endearment  were  mur- 
mured :     *  What   grace ! '      '  Younger   than 


126       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

ever!'  'Well  done,  petite!'  'Ah,  la  ma- 
lignel '  Pleasantly  conscious  of  the  favor 
lavished  upon  her,  she  glided  through  the 
representation  with  truly  astonishing  elas- 
ticity and  buoyancy.  Her  attitudes  and 
movements  were  literally  like  those  of  a 
young  girl.  Her  face,  closely  viewed,  be- 
trayed advancing  age,  but  by  no  means  to 
the  extent  that  would  have  been  expected. 
Her  eyes  flashed  as  brilliantly  as  those  of 
her  youngest  supporters  upon  the  stage; 
and  I  am  sure  that  few  of  them  could  rival 
her  lithe  and  supple  form.  Altogether  her 
appearance  was  that  of  a  woman  of  about 
thirty-five.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
her  acting  could  ever  have  been  more  thor- 
oughly artistic.  The  timid  flirtations  of 
Bernwd,  his  innocent  wickedness,  his  imma- 
ture attempts  at  gallantry,  the  affected  brav- 
ery of  his  soldier  life,  the  jaunty  endeavors 
to  prove  himself  a  man  of  the  world,  and 
the  mischievous  persistence  of  his  last  love 


D^jazet  127 

suit  were  all  expressed  with  inimitable  grace 
and  humor.  The  faculty  of  inventing  im- 
promptu *  by-play,'  always  one  of  her  best 
gifts,  was  everywhere  conspicuous,  and  was 
recognized  at  each  new  point  by  bursts  of 
laughter  and  applause.  Of  course  it  was 
inevitable  that  at  certain  moments  some  evi- 
dence of  time's  changes  should  assert  itself; 
but  even  these  were  made  the  occasion  for 
demonstrations  of  encouragement  and  good- 
will. When  about  to  sing  a  rather  difficult 
song,  she  would  advance  to  the  rompe,  nod 
saucily,  as  if  to  say,  '  You  think  I  can't  do 
it,  but  you  shall  see,'  then  pluckily  assail  her 
bravuras,  comically  tripping  among  the  tor- 
tuous cadenzas,  and  at  the  end  receive  her 
applause  with  an  odd  little  air  of  pride, 
indicating  entire  indifference  as  to  the  lost 
notes,  or  perhaps  a  satisfied  conviction  that 
everything  had  gone  better  than  she  had  ex- 
pected, or  the  public  deserved.  I  really  be- 
lieve the  audience  cried  *  brava '  quite  as 


128       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

heartily  in  jocose  acknowledgment  of  her 
pretty  vanities  as  in  appreciation  of  her  in- 
numerable charms  and  graces. 

"  I  have  since  lost  few  opportunities  of 
witnessing  Dejazet's  performances,  and, 
within  my  own  recollection,  I  find  no  change 
in  her.  Her  exact  age  is  nowhere  recorded, 
but  judging  from  the  date  of  her  first  ap- 
pearance, she  must  now  be  about  seventy- 
five.  Fancy  that,  young  comedians  of  Eng- 
land and  America,  who  fade  away  and  re- 
tire —  either  into  obscurity  or  a  new  line 
of  business  -—  at  half  her  age.  And  still  the 
same  jocund  spirit,  the  same  combined 
daintiness  and  breadth  of  style,  the  same 
exuberant  versatility,  as  at  the  commence- 
ment of  her  history." 

Dejazet  played  youthful  male  parts  even 
better  than  she  did  feminine  ones.  Bona- 
parte, when  a  student  at  Brienne,  the  Due 
de  Reichstadt,  Louis  XV.,  the  youthful 
Richelieu,  the  Marquis  de  Lauzun,  and  the 


Forrest  1 2g 

young  Voltaire  are  some  of  the  characters 
in  which  she  gained  uncounted  plaudits. 

One  of  her  best  performances  was  the 
Prince  de  Conti,  in  Sardou's  "  Les  Pres 
Saint  Gervais."  The  plot  of  the  play  is 
a  slight  one,  merely  consisting  of  a  series 
of  schoolboy  escapades  by  the  young  noble- 
man, who  sets  the  whole  village  in  an  up- 
roar by  his  freaks  and  gallantries.  One  of 
these  scenes,  where  the  prince  has  snatched 
a  kiss  from  the  village  coquette,  Friquette, 
and,  being  indignantly  repulsed,  craves  for- 
giveness, foirms  the  subject  of  our  illustra- 
tion. 

FORREST 

"The  first  and  greatest  of  American  tragedians." 

Lawrence  Barrett. 

The  life  of  Edwin  Forrest  has  furnished 
material  for  three  biographies,  —  one  by 
Alger,  one  by  Rees,  and  one  by  Lawrence 


1 30       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Barrett.  Of  later  date  than  any  of  these 
is  an  interesting  volume  written  by  Gabriel 
Harrison,  who  died  in  1902,  aged  eighty- 
four.  For  many  years  an  actor  and  man- 
ager, Harrison  had  supported  Charles  Kean, 
the  elder  Wallack,  and  Forrest,  and  also 
possessed  artistic  and  literary  ability,  hav- 
ing written  and  published  several  works. 

From  his  book  on  Forrest  is  taken  the 
following  account  of  the  great  actor's  ren- 
dition of  "  Virginius :  " 

"  None  that  ever  saw  Forrest  as  Virgin- 
ius could  forget  his  entrance  before  the 
tribune,  bearing  Virginia  upon  his  arm.  His 
firm  step,  showing  the  calm  resolution 
within  his  heart,  his  manner  of  holding  her 
close  up  to  his  side,  one  arm  around  her 
slender  waist  and  the  other  hand  grasping 
her  hand.  It  was  the  thousand  tendrils  of 
paternal  love  reaching  everywhere  toward 
his  child,  like  the  ivy  with  its  myriad  cling- 
ings  to  the  object  it  would  hold  on  to.    Who 


Edwin  Forrest  as  "  f^irginius  " 

From  a  photogi;aph 


Porrest  1 3 1 

could  forget  the  Roman  dignity  of  his  fig- 
ure? Who  could  forget  the  silence  that 
pervaded  the  theatre,  the  motionless  actors 
on  the  stage  waiting  to  be  thrilled  by  his 
artistic  work?  The  silence  was  profound; 
it  was  like  the  silence  that  pervades  that 
sphere  where  noises  cannot  exist.  It  was 
the  ominous  prelude  to  the  action  of  some- 
thing great.  Never  did  an  audience  before 
wait  so  long  and  patiently  for  the  actor  to 
say  his  words.  When  Virginius  first  ad- 
dressed the  tribune: 

"'Does  no  one  speak?     I  am  defendant  here, 
Is  silence  my  opponent?     Fit  opponent 
To  plead  a  cause  too  foul  for  speech.' 

"  The  clear,  pure  tones  of  his  voice  were 
like  vibrations  struck  from  perfect  chords 
by  an  Orpheus,  and  found  an  echo  in  the 
hearts  of  his  audience.  Each,  now,  in  turn, 
anxiously  listened  for  the  words  of  the 
shrinking  and  abashed  Claudius.     How  in- 


132       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

tense  and  graphic  was  Mr.  Forrest's  by- 
play when  he  finds  that  nothing  but  the 
death  of  his  daughter  by  his  own  hand  could 
save  her  from  the  pollution  of  the  heartless 
Decemvir.  For  a  moment  despair  and  per- 
plexity were  upon  his  face,  but  when  he 
discovered  the  knife  upon  the  butcher's  stall, 
his  facial  expression,  electrical  as  the  light- 
ning that  illumes  the  murky  clouds,  pictured 
the  outline  of  the  true  intensity  of  the  fear- 
ful storm.  The  poet  cannot  express  with 
words  what  the  tragedian  expressed  in  a 
single  look,  —  the  consolation  in  the  thought 
of  his  child's  death  rather  than  her  dis- 
honor by  Claudius.  The  smile  that  followed, 
as  he  looked  into  Virginia's  face,  was  full 
of  pathos  as  he  moved  toward  the  butcher's 
stall  to  reach  the  knife,  his  patting  her  on 
the  shoulder  as  he  changed  her  position 
from  his  right  to  his  left  arm,  that  he  might 
reach  the  knife,  the  taking  of  the  knife,  the 
hiding  of  it  under  the  folds  of  his  toga,  the 


Forrest  133 

fondness  he  expressed  in  his  words,  *  My 
dear  daughter,'  and  his  quick  and  fervent 
kisses  upon  her  upturned  Hps,  striving  to 
press  them  into  her  very  soul,  the  gush  of 
tears  that  wet  his  words: 

"'There  is  one  only  way  to  save  thine  honor  —  'tis 
this/  — 

And  quick  as  the  motion  of  the  human  arm 
could  do  it,  the  knife  was  pressed  into  her 
heart.  The  storm  had  broken;  its  light- 
ning had  wreathed  its  searing  folds  around 
the  instrument  of  death.  The  blood 
streamed  from  the  fatal  blade;  the  daugh- 
ter's blood  stained  the  father's  hand.  And 
then  the  thunder  tones  of  his  mighty  voice 
crashed  through  the  theatre  in  exclama- 
tions : 

"  *  Lo !   Appius ;    with  this  innocent  blood 
I  do  devote  thee  to  the  infernal  gods ! 
Make  way  there !  .  .  .  , 

If  they  dare  this  desperate  weapon  that  is 


134       ^^^^  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Wet  with  my  daughter's  blood,  let  them! 
Thus!    thus  it  rushes  amongst  them!    away! 
Away  there !   away ! ' 

"  The  reckless  manner  in  which  he  rushed 
through  the  guards  of  hctors,  the  shrieks 
of  Servia  when  she  saw  Virginia  fall  to  the 
stage,  the  groups  of  friends  that  gathered 
around  the  prostrate  virgin,  the  bloody 
knife  on  high  flashing  from  right  to  left, 
as  Virginius  cut  his  way  through  the  ranks 
of  soldiers,  formed  a  picture  of  dramatic 
terror  that  thrilled  the  audience  and  excited 
them  to  wild  shouting  and  waving  of  hand- 
kerchiefs. Round  after  round  of  applause 
followed  the  descent  of  the  curtain,  and 
repeatedly  was  the  actor  forced  to  acknowl- 
edge the  overwhelming  approbation  of  the 
crowded  house.  .  .  .  No  less  perfect  was 
his  portrayal  of  the  delirious  scene  in  the 
fifth  act.  His  demented  look,  the  calling  of 
his  *  Virginia,  Virginia ! '  It  was  a  call 
dictated  by  a  dethroned  mind ;    a  sound  that 


Forrest  13^ 

seemed  to  come  from  a  mysterious  vault. 
There  was  a  half- wakefulness  in  it  like  the 
utterance  of  thoughts  in  dreams.  It  had  the 
touch  of  pity  and  was  manifold  in  its  mean- 
ing. It  was  a  reverting  form  of  sound  that 
turned  back  to  the  place  where  it  came  from, 
and  fell  dead  where  it  was  born.  Then 
came  the  awful  picture  as  he  kneeled  over 
the  strangled  body  of  Appius  Claudius. 
The  sigh  he  gave  that  burst  the  spell  that 
bound  him,  as  Icilius  placed  within  his 
hands  the  urn  that  contained  the  ashes  of 
his  daughter,  the  folding  of  the  sacred  chal- 
ice to  his  heart,  the  relaxation  of  his  limbs, 
and  falling  to  the  stage  exhausted.  All 
were  of  one  masterpiece." 


1 36      The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 


WILLIAM    WARREN 

"He  played  many  parts  in  his  time,  but  he  played 
none  better  than  that  of  William  Warren." 

W.  T.  W.  Ball. 

It  is  a  coincidence  which  may  be  noted 
that  our  greatest  tragedian  and  our  greatest 
comedian  both  made  their  first  appearance 
in  Philadelphia,  and  in  the  same  character, 
—  Young  Norval  in  Home's  tragedy  of 
"  Douglas," — Forrest's  debut  being  in  1820 
and  Warren's  in  1832.  More  than  fifty 
years  after,  in  1883,  William  Warren  played 
his  last  part.  This  was  at  the  Boston  Mu- 
seum, when  he  appeared  as  Old  Eccles  in 
"  Caste." 

Over  thirty  years  have  gone  by  since  the 
writer  first  had  the  delight  of  seeing  Will- 
iam Warren  act  in  comedy.  The  place  was, 
of  course,  the  Boston  Museum;    the  piece 


William  Warren  as  ' '  Herr  Weigel ' ' 

From  photograph  in  the  collection  of  Mrs.  T.  H.  Simmons 


Copyright,  1888,  by  A.  W.  Elson  Co.,  Boston. 


William    Warren  137 

was  "  The  Serious  Family,"  and  Warren 
played  Aminadab  Sleek.  His  inimitably 
unctuous  manner  in  this  part  is  as  unfor- 
gotten  as  the  pathos  of  his  Jacques  Fauvel, 
the  centenarian  of  "  One  Hundred  Years 
Old,"  a  play  produced  at  the  Museum  the 
same  year.  From  that  time  until  his  re- 
tirement, I  saw  him  in  many  other  parts, 
both  grave  and  gay,  notably  as  Captain 
Cuttle  and  Mr.  Micawher,  but  was  unluck- 
ily prevented  from  witnessing  any  of  his 
unsurpassed  impersonations  in  the  older 
standard  comedies. 

Our  illustration  shows  Warren  as  Herr 
Weigel,  the  old  shoemaker,  in  "  My  Son," 
a  work  adapted  from  L'Arronge's  "  Mein 
Leopold." 

One  of  Boston's  ablest  dramatic  critics, 
the  lamented  George  Bryant  Woods,  wrote 
the  following  admirable  estimate  of  War- 
ren's art: 

"  We  cannot  go  into  minute  analysis  of 


138       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

the  elements  of  this  great  comedian's  skill. 
Were  we  called  upon  to  name  the  foremost 
attributes  of  his  power,  we  should  select  his 
forbearance,  his  dignity,  the  delicacy  of  his 
humor,  the  sympathy  and  magnetism  of 
his  pathos,  and  above  all  the  faithfulness 
to  detail  and  to  duty  which  mark  all  that 
he  does.  Never  does  he  take  advantage  of 
his  fame,  or  of  the  fondness  of  his  audi- 
ence to  put  himself  forward  when  some 
necessary  question  of  the  play  is  to  be  con- 
sidered; yet  never  does  he  lapse  into  tame- 
ness  or  inattention,  though  he  be  lost  in 
the  background  or  hidden  in  a  multitude. 
No  minor  actor  ever  need  complain  that 
an  opportunity  of  his  own  was  sacrificed 
to  one  of  Mr.  Warren's  points;  no  author 
could  ever  claim  that  a  part  or  a  plot  was 
marred  by  anything  lacking  or  anything 
overdone  on  his  part.  To  pass  for  a  mo- 
ment into  detail,  in  illustration  of  some  of 
the    qualities    we   have   noted:     ^'^V   Peter 


William    Warren  1 39 

Teazle  is  a  comic  character,  but  there  is  a 
moment  of  pure  tragedy  in  it  when  the 
testy,  nohle  old  gentleman  discovers  his  wife 
hidden  behind  the  screen  in  the  library  of 
Joseph  Surface.  How  grandly  Mr.  Warren 
interprets  the  depth  of  emotion  in  the  soul 
which  is  stirred  at  that  instant!  There 
never  was  a  keener  appreciation  of  humor 
than  belongs  to  Mr.  Warren;  but  Sir  Har- 
court  Courtly  is  not  a  humorous  man;  and 
it  is  worth  long  and  repeated  study  to  see 
how  seriously  he  goes  through  the  play  in 
that  part ;  how  far  he  is  from  apparent  con- 
sciousness of  any  of  the  fun  going  on  about 
him;  how  saturated  with  the  supreme  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  superiority  which  be- 
longs to  the  character.  There  have  been 
very  few  actors  who  could  impart  so  much 
meaning  to  one  or  two  words,  and  this  with 
never  an  indulgence  in  exaggeration  for 
effect,  with  the  severest  and  driest  of  sim- 
plicity.   In  the  first  scene  of  Sardou's  com- 


140       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

edy  of  *  Fernande/  one  of  the  lady  fre- 
quenters of  a  gay  gaming-house  in  Paris, 
commenting  upon  the  scandalous  behavior 
of  an  acquaintance,  remarks,  parenthetically, 
'  Now,  I  don't  set  up  for  a  prude.'  '  Cer- 
tainly not,'  says  the  courteous  advocate  to 
whom  she  is  speaking.  It  is  the  slightest 
thing  in  the  world,  —  a  parenthesis  within 
a  parenthesis ;  but  in  the  utterance  of  those 
two  words  there  is  a  gleam  of  genius  as  bril- 
liant, but  as  indescribable  as  a  flash  of  heat 
lightning.  Take  again,  as  a  concluding  ex- 
ample, Mr.  Warren's  performance  of  Jesse 
Rural  in  *  Old  Heads  and  Young  Hearts.' 
How  admirable,  yet  how  free  from  any  sus- 
picion of  grotesqueness,  is  the  make-up, 
from  the  innocent,  round,  venerable  face, 
with  its  halo  of  thin,  white  hair,  to  the 
threadbare  elbow  of  the  country  minister's 
coat  sleeve;  how  touching,  how  unforced 
is  the  simplicity  of  his  bearing  and  conduct ; 
how  the  voice  ripples  and  trembles  with  th^ 


William    Warren  141 

emotion  which  comes  ahke  from  a  gentle 
heart  and  a  pulpit  training;  how  modestly 
the  actor  refrains  from  pressing  himself 
upon  the  attention  while  the  tangled  threads 
of  the  too  ingenious  plot  are  woven  to- 
gether ;  how  far  beyond  praise  is  the  transi- 
tion of  the  final  situation  from  merriment 
through  hysterical  laughter  to  tears;  and 
with  what  matchless  and  impressive  dignity 
—  a  model  for  the  thousand  commonplace 
ministers  of  actual  life  —  is  uttered  the  con- 
cluding address  of  the  old  clergyman  to  the 
audience ! 

"  Eulogy  is  not  our  trade.  We  aim  ever, 
in  these  sketches,  to  give  a  discriminative 
view  of  the  leading  characteristics  of  the 
subjects  we  discuss.  But  in  treating  a 
genius  like  Mr.  Warren's,  so  delicate,  so 
brilliant,  so  true,  combined  with  such  artis- 
tic conscience,  such  freedom  from  conceit, 
such  a  respect  for  itself,  forbidding  ignoble 
artifice  to  heighten  its  attractipn,  we  care  not 


142       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

to  repress  the  enthusiasm  with  which  our 
tribute  finds  words." 

These  discriminating  sentences  were 
worthily  supplemented  by  Henry  A.  Clapp, 
who  said: 

"  Mr.  Warren's  style  as  a  dramatic  artist 
is  so  broad  and  full  as  to  be  exceedingly 
hard  to  describe.  Devoid  of  eccentricities 
and  extravagances,  it  lacks,  like  a  perfectly 
proportioned  building,  those  salient  peculi- 
arities which  at  once  catch  even  the  unob- 
servant eye.  A  deformed  cripple  can  be 
much  more  easily  depicted  than  an  Apollo. 
To  his  professional  work  he  has  brought 
the  true,  plastic  temperament  of  the  actor, 
a  rich  native  sense  of  humor,  the  power  of 
keen  and  delicate  observation,  an  absolute 
sense  of  proportion,  a  strong,  educated  in- 
telligence, varied  culture,  and  that  devoted 
love  for  his  art  which  has  made  unresting 
industry  mere  delight.  The  flower  of  all 
these  gifts  and  virtues  is  a  style  of  acting 


William    Warren  143 

which  unites  excq)tional  vividness,  force, 
sensibiHty,  and  effectiveness  with  a  fine  re- 
serve and  an  unfailing  observance  of  the 
modesty  of  nature.  An  exquisitely  exact 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  supplemented 
by  precise  knowledge  of  the  need  of  every 
moment,  is  Mr.  Warren's  most  distinguish- 
ing trait;  but  there  is  nothing  mechanical 
in  his  practices,  no  observable  interval  be- 
tween intent  and  result;  on  the  contrary, 
his  playing  shows  that  perfect  infusion  of 
thought  and  act  which  makes  analysis  of 
his  art  impossible  until  his  art  has  first 
wrought  its  due  effect  upon  the  feelings  of 
the  spectator.  .  .  .  Next  to  the  fine  pre- 
cision and  justness  which  characterize  Mr. 
Warren's  style,  the  versatility  of  his  power 
denotes  his  distinction  as  an  artist.  His 
range  as  a  comedian  is,  as  we  said  above, 
simply  unequalled,  and  to  the  interpretation 
of  every  variety  of  character  he  brings  that 
exquisite   sensibility   and    clearness    of    in- 


144       ^^^  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

sight,  that  mobility  of  nature  and  fulness 
of  understanding,  which  make  his  work 
vital,  natural,  and  satisfying.  For  pathos 
his  gift  is  scarcely  less  remarkable  than  for 
humor,  the  touch  showing  at  times  per- 
haps not  his  greatest  facility,  but  the  method 
being  always  imaginative  and  the  feeling 
pure  and  genuine.  Nor  is  it  upon  the  deep 
and  broad  lines  only  that  Mr.  Warren  ex- 
cels. In  the  art  of  swift  and  subtle  insin- 
uation, in  the  display  of  mixed  or  conflicting 
emotions,  he  has  no  rival  upon  our  stage. 
"  One  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the  greatest, 
artists  in  the  line  of  make-up  we  ever  had 
on  our  Boston  stage  was  unquestionably 
William  Warren.  In  this,  as  in  the  matter 
of  costume,  he  was  well-nigh  perfect.  Of 
the  many  parts  he  played  in  this  city,  — 
something  like  five  hundred,  —  no  two  were 
made  up  alike.  Each  was  a  distinct  and  sep- 
arate creation  of  his  own.     It  would  seem 


Charlotte  Cushman  145 

almost    impossible    that    so    much    variety 
could  be  given  to  the  human  countenance. 

"*But  by  the  mighty  actor  brought, 
Illusion's   perfect  triumphs   come/ 

and  in  his  illusions  Mr.  Warren  was  indeed 
*  the  mighty  actor.' '' 


CHARLOTTE    CUSHMAN 

"  Salve,  Regina !    art  and  song, 
Dismissed  by  thee,  shall  miss  thee  long, 
And  keep  thy  memory  green, — 
Our  most  illustrious  queen  !  " 

R.  H.  Stoddard. 

Of  all  the  characters  assumed  by  Char- 
lotte Cushman,  Hamlet  and  Romeo,  Rosa- 
lind and  Beatrice,  Bianca  and  Mrs.  Haller, 
Lady  Macbeth  and  Queen  Katherine,  Nancy 
Sykes  and  Meg  Merrilies,  the  last  named 
is  probably  the  one  with  which  her  name 
will  be  most  associated  in  the  public  mind. 


146       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Miss  Emma  Stebbins,  Charlotte  Cush- 
man's  intimate  friend  and  biographer,  gives 
the  following  account  of  the  character. 

She  says :  "It  may  not  be  inappropriate 
to  recall  some  remembrances  of  the  part 
which  more  than  any  other  is  identified  with 
her  name,  and  may  be  said  to  have  been  her 
own  special  creation,  that  of  Meg  Merrilies. 
I  have  sought  in  vain  among  the  newspaper 
files  of  the  period  for  the  absolute  date  of 
her  first  performance  of  this  character ;  but 
other  evidence  settles  it  as  having  been  in 
the  year  1840—41,  during  Braham's  first  and 
only  engagement  in  New  York,  and  at  the 
Park  Theatre.  Her  own  account  of  it  was 
substantially  as  follows.  But  first  it  may 
be  mentioned  that  there  is  one  very  ancient 
newspaper  cutting,  which  is,  however,  with- 
out name  or  date,  in  which  the  fact  of  her 
assumption  of  the  part  at  a  moment's  notice 
is  thus  alluded  to: 

"  *  Alany  years  ago,  Miss  Charlotte  Cush- 


Charlotte  Cushman  147 

man  was  doing  at  the  Park  Theatre  what 
in  stage  parlance  is  called  "  general  utility 
business/'  that  is,  the  work  of  three  ordi- 
nary performers,  filling  the  gap  when  any 
one  was  sick,  playing  this  one's  part  and 
the  other's  on  occasion,  never  refusing  to  do 
whatever  was  allotted  to  her.  As  may  be 
supposed,  one  who  held  this  position  had 
as  yet  no  position  to  be  proud  of.  One 
night,  "  Guy  Mannering,"  a  musical  piece, 
was  announced.  It  was  produced  by  Mr. 
Braham,  the  great  English  tenor,  who 
played  Harry  Bertram.  Mrs.  Chippendale 
was  cast  for  Meg  Merrilies,  but  during  the 
day  was  taken  ill,  so  this  obscure  utility  ac- 
tress, this  Miss  Cushman,  was  sent  for  and 
told  to  be  ready  in  the  part  by  night.  She 
might  read  it  on  the  boards  if  she  could  not 
commit  it.  But  the  "  utility  woman  "  was 
not  used  to  reading  her  parts;  she  learned 
it  before  nightfall,  and  played  it  after  night- 
fall.   She  played  it  so  as  to  be  enthusiastic- 


143       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

ally  applauded.  At  this  half-day's  notice, 
the  part  was  taken  up  which  is  now  so  fa- 
mous among  dramatic  portraitures/ 

"  It  was  in  consequence  of  Mrs.  Chippen- 
dale's illness  that  she  was  called  upon  on 
the  very  day  of  the  performance  to  assume 
the  part.  Study,  dress,  etc.,  had  to  be  an 
inspiration  of  the  moment.  She  had  never 
especially  noticed  the  part;  as  it  had  been 
heretofore  performed,  there  was  not  prob- 
ably much  to  attract  her;  but,  as  she  stood 
at  the  side-scene,  book  in  hand,  awaiting  her 
moment  of  entrance,  her  ear  caught  the  dia- 
logue going  on  upon  the  stage  between  two 
of  the  gipsies,  in  which  one  says  to  the  other, 
alluding  to  her,  *  Meg,  —  why,  she  is  no 
longer  what  she  was;  she  doats,'  etc.,  evi- 
dently giving  the  impression  that  she  is  no 
longer  to  be  feared  or  respected;  that  she 
is  no  longer  in  her  right  mind.  With  the 
words,  a  vivid  flash  of  insight  struck  upon 
her  brain.    She  saw  and  felt  by  the  powerful 


Charlotte  Cushman  149 

dramatic  instinct  with  which  she  was  en- 
dowed the  whole  meaning  and  intention  of 
the  character,  and  no  doubt  from  that  mo^ 
ment  it  became,  what  it  never  ceased  to  be, 
a  powerful,  original,  and  consistent  concep- 
tion in  her  mind.  She  gave  herself  with  her 
usual  concentrated  energy  of  purpose  to  this 
conception,  and  flashed  at  once  upon  the 
stage  in  the  startling,  weird,  and  terrible 
manner  which  we  all  so  well  remember.  On 
this  occasion  it  so  astonished  and  confounded 
Mr.  Braham,  little  accustomed  heretofore  to 
such  manifestations,  that  he  went  to  her 
after  the  play  to  express  his  surprise  and 
his  admiration. 

"  *  I  had  not  thought  that  I  had  done  any- 
thing remarkable,'  she  says,  *  and  when  the 
knock  came  at  my  dressing-room  door,  and 
I  heard  Braham's  voice,  my  first  thought 
was,  "  Now,  what  have  I  done?  He  is 
surely  displeased  with  me  about  something," 
for  in  those  days  I  was  only  the  "  utility  ac- 


150       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

tress,"  and  had  no  prestige  of  position  to 
carry  me  through.  Imagine  my  gratification 
when  Mr.  Braham  said :  "  Miss  Cushman, 
I  have  come  to  thank  you  for  the  most  veri- 
table sensation  I  have  experienced  for  a  long 
time.  I  give  you  my  word,  when  I  turned 
and  saw  you  in  that  first  scene,  I  felt  a  cold 
chill  run  all  over  me.  Where  have  you 
learned  to  do  anything  like  that  ?  "  ' 

"  From  this  time  the  part  of  Meg  grew 
and  strengthened.  .  .  .  Meg,  behind  the 
scenes,  was  quite  as  remarkable  as  before 
them.  It  was  a  study  for  an  artist,  and  has 
been  so  to  many,  to  witness  the  process  of 
preparation  for  this  notable  character,  — 
the  make-lip,  as  they  call  it  in  the  parlance  of 
the  theatre,  —  a  regular,  systematic,  and 
thoroughly  artistic  performance,  wrought 
out  with  the  same  instinctive  knowledge 
which  was  so  manifest  in  all  she  did.  *  Miss 
Cushman,'  a  distinguished  lady  artist  once 
said  to  her,  as  she  wonderingly  watched  the 


Charlotte  Cushman  as  "  Meg  Merrilies  " 

From  photograph  in  the  collection  of  Evert  Jansen 
Wendell 


Charlotte  Cushman  15I 

process  whereby  the  weird  hag  grew  out  of 
the  pleasant  and  genial  lineaments  of  the  ac- 
tress, '  How  do  you  know  where  to  put  in 
those  shadows  and  make  those  lines  which 
so  accurately  give  the  effect  of  age?'  *  I 
don't  know,'  was  the  answer,  '  I  only  feel 
where  they  ought  to  come.'  .  .  . 

"  The  costume  of  Meg  is  another  subject 
upon  which  much  of  interest  might  be  writ- 
ten: how  it  gradually  grew,  as  all  artistic 
things  must,  from  the  strangest  materials; 
a  bit  picked  up  here,  another  there,  seem- 
ingly a  mass  of  incoherent  rags  and  tatters, 
but  full  of  method  and  meaning;  every 
scrap  of  it  put  together  with  reference  to 
antecedent  experiences,  —  the  wind,  the 
storm,  the  outdoor  life  of  hardship,  the  toss- 
ing and  tempering  it  had  received  through 
its  long  wanderings;  and  which  to  an  ar- 
tist's eye  is  beyond  price,  seemingly  a  bundle 
of  rags,  and  yet  a  royal  garment,  for  the 
truly  queenly  character  of  the  old  gipsy  en- 


152       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

nobled  every  thread  of  it.  How  many  of 
those  who  felt  this  quahty  in  the  wearer 
noticed  how  the  battered  head-dress  was 
arranged  in  vague  and  shadowy  semblance 
to  a  crown,  the  gnarled  and  twisted  branch 
she  carried  suggesting  the  emblem  of  com- 
mand?'' 

RACHEL 

"We  possess  the  most  marvellous  actress  (al- 
though still  only  a  child)  that  this  generation  has 
seen  on  the  stage.  This  actress  is  Mademoiselle 
Rachel."  Jules  Janin. 

Rachel,  of  whom  the  celebrated  French 
critic  wrote  these  words  on  her  debut  at 
the  Theatre  Francais  in  1838,  was  a  Jew- 
ess. The  despised  but  marvellous  race  from 
whence  she  sprang  has  given  Spinoza  to 
philosophy,  Heinrich  Heine  to  literature, 
Mendelssohn,  Meyerbeer,  and  Rubinstein 
to  music,  Achille  Fould,  the  Pereires  and 
the  Rothschilds  to  finance,  Beaconsfield  to 


Rachel  153 

statesmanship,  Sir  Moses  Montefiore  and 
Baron  Hirsch  to  philanthropy,  Josef  Israels 
and  Mark  Antokolski  to  art,  and  Rachel 
and  Sarah  Bernhardt  to  the  stage. 

Apart  from  her  genius,  Rachel  owed  most 
to  her  teacher,  Samson,  teacher  of  elocution 
and  professor  at  the  Conservatoire,  all  her 
great  parts  having  been  studied  under  him. 
Samson,  of  real  talent  as  an  author  and 
actor,  was  a  genius  as  a  teacher.  His  pupils 
included  Madame  Plessis,  Favart,  Made- 
leine and  Augustine  Brohan,  Rose  Cheri, 
Jouassin,  Stella  Colas,  and  Aimee  Desclee. 

For  nearly  a  generation  he  had  been  an 
active  servant  of  the  French  stage;  he  had 
been  the  scholar  of  Fleury  and  the  elder 
Baptiste;  he  had  acted  with  Mile.  Mars,  and 
Madame  Dorval;  more  than  all,  he  had 
heard  from  Talma's  own  lips  the  great  trage- 
dian's opinions  on  the  art  of  which  he  was 
such  a  renowned  exponent.  The  youthful 
Rachel  in  her  turn  received  and  profited  by 


154       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

these  invaluable  traditions,  imparted  to  her 
with  enthusiasm  by  Samson,  who  was  al- 
ways justly  proud  of  his  illustrious  pupil. 

When  her  success  was  an  accomplished 
fact,  and  enormous  audiences  greeted  her 
nightly,  Samson  never  tired  of  recalling 
with  pleasure  the  hours  spent  in  teaching 
Rachel,  whose  perception  and  precision  were 
alike  remarkable.  Of  education  she  had 
received  but  very  little,  and  it  was  neces- 
sary for  her  teacher  to  recount  to  her  the 
history  and  character  of  the  person  she  was 
to  represent  before  beginning  the  regular 
lesson,  in  which  her  interest  was  indefati- 
gable. 

From  her  first  appearance  at  the  Theatre 
Francais  until  her  retirement  from  the 
stage,  Rachel  never  essayed  a  new  part  or 
revived  an  old  one  without  the  aid  of  her 
old  master,  Samson. 

Sometime  in  the  early  fifties  Salvini  saw 
Rachel  act  several  times  in  Rome,  and  in 


Rachel  1 5  5 

his  autobiography  has  recorded  his  impres- 
sions of  "  that  incomparable  French  ac- 
tress," as  he  calls  her.  He  says :  "  She  was 
the  very  quintessence  of  the  art  of  Roscius; 
to  render  due  praise  to  her  qualities  of  mind, 
as  well  as  to  those  of  face  and  form,  it 
would  be  necessary  to  coin  new  epithets  in 
the  Italian  tongue.  Expression,  attitude, 
the  mobile  restraint  of  her  features,  grace, 
dignity,  affection,  passion,  majesty,  —  all  in 
her  was  nature  itself.  Her  eyes,  like  two 
black  carbuncles,  and  her  magnificent  raven 
hair,  added  splendor  to  a  face  full  of  life 
and  feeling.  When  she  was  silent  she 
seemed  almost  more  eloquent  than  when 
she  spoke.  Her  voice,  at  once  sympathetic, 
harmonious,  and  full  of  variety,  expressed 
the  various  passions  with  correct  intonation 
and  exemplary  measure.  Her  motions  were 
always  statuesque,  and  never  seemed  stud- 
ied." 

At  the  time  of  which  Salvini  speaks,  his 


156       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

great  career  lay  before  him.  With  Rachel 
the  opposite  was  the  case. 

Her  last  appearance  on  any  stage  oc- 
curred during  her  American  tour,  when,  ill 
and  suffering,  she  acted  Adrienne  Lecou- 
vreur  on  December  17,  1855,  ^^  Charles- 
ton, S.  C. 

Gerome,  in  his  portrait  of  Rachel,  now 
in  the  museum  of  the  Theatre  Francais, 
has  portrayed  her  as  the  veritable  spirit  of 
those  classic  tragedies  in  which  her  genius 
soared  to  its  zenith.  Theophile  Gautier 
wrote  of  the  canvas  in  these  words :  "  The 
portrait  of  Rachel  is  at  once  a  portrait  and 
a  personification.  Tragedy  is  seen  in  the 
tragedienne,  the  Muse  in  the  actress,  who, 
draped  in  crimson  and  orange,  stands  be- 
fore a  severe  Doric  portico.  The  sombre 
passions,  the  fatalities,  the  tragic  furies 
contract  her  pale  visage.  It  is  Rachel  on 
her  sinister  side,  fierce  and  violent."  This 
powerful  picture,  exhibited  at  the  Salon  of 


Rachel 

From  painting  by  Jean  Leon  (.rcion.t 


Ristori  1 57 

1 86 1,  does  honor  to  the  artist,  who,  born 
in  1824,  has  filled  a  long  life  with  worthy 
work,  and  depicted  many  great  historic  fig- 
ures, —  Caesar,  Cleopatra,  Dante,  Frederick 
the  Great,  and  Napoleon.  Extraordinary 
honors  have  been  given  to  Gerome,  both 
as  painter  and  sculptor.  He  is  represented 
in  the  United  States  in  many  public  and 
private  galleries. 


RISTORI 

"She   is   the   greatest   female   artist   I   have   ever 
seen."  Charlotte  Cushman. 

In  May,  1855,  Ristori,  who  had  just 
made  her  debut  in  Paris  and  scored  a  gen- 
uine triumph,  witnessed  Rachel's  perform- 
ance of  Camille  in  Racine's  "  Les  Horaces," 
and  praised  the  great  tragedienne  without 
stint.  Rachel,  in  her  turn,  saw  Ristori  act, 
but  otherwise  the  two  never  met. 


158       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

An  anonymous  writer  in  Putnam's 
Monthly  has  made  an  interesting  compari- 
son of  Rachel  and  Ristori,  from  which  the 
following  is  selected : 

"  The  presence  of  two  artists  of  such 
transcendent  merit  as  Rachel  and  La  Ris- 
tori at  the  same  time  on  the  Parisian  stage 
could  not  fail  to  divide  the  theatre-loving 
public  into  two  rival  camps,  each  party  de- 
crying the  pretensions  of  the  other,  and 
claiming  the  palm  of  superiority  for  its 
favorite. 

"  But  these  hostilities  have  been  of  short 
duration,  for  it  was  soon  felt  that  the  genius 
of  the  two  great  tragedians,  equally  un- 
questionable in  point  of  fact,  was  of  a  char- 
acter so  opposite  as  to  make  it  impossible 
to  establish  a  comparison  between  them. 
Nature  has  been  equally  generous  to  both, 
though  in  a  different  way,  and  both  possess 
in  an  equal  degree  the  science,  sentiment, 
and  resources  of  their  art;   but  the  nature 


Ristori  1 59 

of  their  genius,  being  essentially  different, 
they  arrive,  through  opposite  methods,  at 
the  production  of  opposite  effects.  Thus, 
even  in  the  performance  of  the  same  part, 
—  Schiller's  Mary  Stuart^  in  which  Rachel 
also  has  frequently  appeared,  —  the  peculiar 
talent  of  each  artist  imparts  so  different  a 
character  to  the  same  impersonation  that 
it  is  impossible  to  establish  anything  like 
a  qualitative  comparison  between  them. 

"  It  is  now  generally  admitted,  by  critics 
and  public,  that  we  cannot,  by  any  received 
canons  of  art,  decide  which  is  the  greater 
talent  of  the  two,  the  preference  accorded 
to  the  one  or  to  the  other  being  the  result 
of  the  personal  idiosyncrasy  and  tastes  of 
the  spectator. 

"  Rachel  may  be  defined  as  an  animated 
statue;  the  most  perfect  incarnation  ever 
seen  of  plastic  art,  as  it  has  come  down 
to  us  in  the  immortal  creations  of  the  old 
Greek  sculptors.    The  contour  of  her  small, 


i6o       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

low-browed  head,  the  pale  oval  of  her  face, 
the  symmetrical  proportions  of  her  form, 
are  all  in  the  highest  degree  classical  and 
statuesque;  and  she  wears  the  tunic  as  nat- 
urally as  though  she  had  worn  it  from  her 
childhood.  Through  persevering  study, 
aided  by  the  peculiarity  of  her  mental  struc- 
ture, she  has  so  thoroughly  imbued  herself 
with  the  traditions  and  spirit  of  ancient 
Greece  that  every  attitude  and  gesture  is  as 
classically  correct  as  her  appearance;  and  in 
her  acting  she  attains,  with  the  same  com- 
pleteness, the  same  conventional  ideal. 

"  In  her  delineations  of  the  fiercer,  as  of 
the  softer  emotions,  she  never  falls  short 
of,  never  exceeds,  the  sobriety  of  that  aver- 
age of  expression  which  is  the  ne  plus  ultra 
of  sculptural  truth.  No  weakness,  no  ex- 
aggeration, deforms  the  harmonious  outline 
of  her  creations.  The  fire  of  her  eye,  the 
exquisite  modulations  of  her  voice,  the  maj- 
esty and  grace  of  her  movements,  her  mag- 


Ristori  i6i 

nificent  bursts  of  tragic  fury,  regulated  by 
her  profound  intelligence  of  her  part,  serve 
to  fill  up  this  outline,  but  are  never  permitted 
to  exceed  it. 

"  For  Rachel,  it  may  be  said  that  nature 
—  the  nature  of  this  outer  world  and  of 
humanity  —  does  not  exist.  With  her,  art 
has  taken  the  place  of  nature;  an  art,  whose 
elements,  perfectly  coordinated,  constitute  a 
world  by  itself,  with  its  own  laws  and  its 
own  coherence,  its  own  denizens,  life,  inter- 
est, and  beauty.  But  this  world  is  not  our 
world;  its  women  are  not  women,  but  god- 
desses or  demons;  its  terrors  do  not  move 
us;  its  tears  do  not  melt,  nor  its  smiles 
warm  us. 

"  It  is  true  that  in  the  character  of  Adri- 
enne  Lecouvreur  (in  a  play  founded  on  the 
history  of  a  famous  actress  of  the  time  of 
Louis  XV. ) ,  and  in  that  of  Mile,  de  Belleisle 
(a  young  girl  of  noble  birth  and  unsullied 
purity  exposed  to  odious  and  ungrounded 


l62       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

suspicions),  Rachel  has  proved  that  she  can 
be  human  when  she  will ;  while,  as  the  hes- 
bie  of  M.  Berthet's  graceful  drama,  she  has 
shown  that  she  possesses,  would  she  but  use 
them,  a  charm  and  beauty  equal  to  her 
power.  But  parts  of  this  description  are 
rare  in  her  performances,  and  her  appear- 
ance in  them,  though  highly  successful, 
would  probably  never  have  won  for  her  the 
preeminent  position  she  has  attained  in  the 
classical  creations  with  which  she  has  identi- 
fied her  name. 

"  Yet,  in  witnessing  her  interpretations  of 
Camille,  Emilie,  Phedre,  Hermione,  etc.,  we 
feel  that  we  are  in  the  presence,  not  of  any 
passion  or  emotion,  but  of  a  most  perfect 
representation  of  passion  and  emotion.  In 
these  purely  intellectual  appeals  to  our  in- 
telligence, we  are  conscious  of  receiving  a 
high  artistic  gratification,  and  follow  with 
admiring  wonder  these  magnificent  exhi- 
bitions of  plastic  power.     But  they  produce 


T^^u^.i 


^ 


Ristori  as  "  Lucreiia  Borgia 

From  a  photograph 


Ristori  163 

no  illusion,  excite  no  emotion ;  we  recognize 
the  transcendent  art  of  the  actress,  but,  for 
us,  the  art  remains  art,  the  actress  an  actress. 

"If  Rachel  be  the  high  priestess  of  art, 
compelling  us  to  follow  her  into  a  region 
purely  ideal,  La  Ristori  is  the  interpreter 
of  nature  in  the  broad  sphere  of  human  life 
and  emotion.  Her  creations,  no  less  artis- 
tically perfect,  are  to  those  of  Rachel  as  is 
the  woman  Eve  to  the  Eve  of  the  sculptor. 
They  live,  breathe,  move,  with  the  same  life 
that  pulses  in  our  veins  and  beats  in  our 
bosoms.  *  Bone  of  our  bone,  and  flesh  of 
our  flesh,'  they  stir  our  hearts  with  the 
*  touch  of  nature,'  and  waken  an  answering 
vibration  in  the  innermost  fibres  of  our 
consciousness. 

"  Whatever  the  sentiment  she  is  portray- 
ing, La  Ristori  says  and  does  just  what  we 
should  say  and  do  in  the  same  situation. 
Her  joy,  her  sorrow,  her  anger,  hope,  pity, 
or  revenge,  are  real  human  emotions,  ex- 


164      The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

actly  such  as  we  ourselves  should  feel  under 
the  same  circumstances.  Her  smile  en- 
chants us,  her  tears  afflict,  and  her  indig- 
nation rouses  us,  for  they  are  our  own. 

"  While  Rachel,  as  in  Mary  Stuart,  com- 
pels the  most  capricious,  pathetic,  and  touch- 
ing phases  of  human  feeling  to  assume  the 
proportions  of  the  conventional  ideal  she 
has  made  her  own.  La  Ristori,  as  in  Mirra 
and  in  Camma,  avails  herself  even  of  the 
introduction  of  the  supernatural  element  to 
deepen  the  purely  human  pathos  of  her  part. 

"  Rachel,  subordinating  nature  to  art,  so 
chastens  every  detail  of  her  character  that 
no  distortion  ever  impairs  its  classic  con- 
tour; La  Ristori,  pressing  all  the  resources 
of  art  into  the  service  of  nature,  models 
every  portion  of  her  acting  so  faithfully 
upon  the  reality  of  life  that,  in  her  most 
impetuous,  most  pathetic,  or  most  terrible 
delineations,  she  never  misses,  never  over- 
steps the  truth." 


Fechter  16^ 


FECHTER 

"Fechter  is  the  most  youthful,  most  ardent,  most 
enthusiastic,  most  insinuating  of  artists.     What  va- 
riety of  talents,  what  unpretending  skill  in  concep- 
tion, what  marvellous,  thrilling,  electric  execution !  " 
Alexandre  Dumas  (^the  younger). 

Charles  Fechter  acted  Hamlet  for  the 
first  time  in  London  in  the  spring  of  1861, 
and  made  so  great  an  impression  that  the 
play  ran  for  one  hundred  and  fifteen  nights. 
It  was  nine  years  later  when  he  produced 
it  in  the  United  States. 

As  a  boy  of  fifteen,  the  writer  saw  Fech- 
ter play  Hamlet  at  the  old  Globe  Theatre, 
in  Boston,  in  the  winter  of  1870  -  71.  I  will 
not  venture  to  speak  on  the  merits  of  that 
remarkable  performance  in  face  of  the  nu- 
merous estimates  by  more  competent  critics 
which  are  extant,  but  will  confine  myself  to 
quoting  from  them. 


l66      The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Charles  Dickens,  the  actor's  close  friend, 
wrote :  "  Perhaps  no  innovation  in  art  was 
ever  accepted  with  so  much  favor  by  so 
many  intellectual  persons,  precommitted  to 
and  preoccupied  by  another  system,  as  Mr. 
Fechter's  Hamlet.  I  take  this  to  have  been 
the  case  (as  it  unquestionably  was  in  Lon- 
don), not  because  of  its  picturesqueness, 
not  because  of  its  novelty,  not  because  of 
its  many  scattered  beauties,  but  because  of 
its  perfect  consistency  with  itself.  As  the 
animal  painter  said  of  his  favorite  picture 
of  rabbits  that  '  there  was  more  nature  about 
those  rabbits  than  you  usually  found  in 
rabbits,'  so  it  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Fechter's 
Hamlet,  that  there  was  more  consistency 
about  that  Hamlet  than  you  usually  found 
in  Hamlets. 

"  Its  great  and  satisfying  originality  was 
in  its  possessing  the  merit  of  a  distinctly 
conceived  and  executed  idea.  From  the 
first  appearance  of  the  broken  glass  of  fash- 


Pechter  167 

ion  atld  mould  of  form,  pale  and  worn  with 
weeping  for  his  father's  death,  and  remotely 
suspicious  of  its  cause,  to  his  final  struggle 
with  Horatio  for  the  fatal  cup,  there  were 
cohesion  and  coherence  in  Mr.  Fechter's 
view  of  the  character. 

"  Devrient,  the  German  actor,  had  some 
years  before,  in  London,  fluttered  the  theat- 
rical doves  considerably  by  such  changes  as 
being  seated  when  instructing  the  players, 
and  like  mild  departures  from  established 
usage;  but  he  had  worn,  in  the  main,  the 
old  nondescript  dress,  and  had  held  forth, 
in  the  main,  in  the  old  way,  hovering  be- 
tween sanity  and  madness.  I  do  not  remem- 
ber whether  he  wore  his  hair  crisply  curled 
short,  as  if  he  were  going  to  an  everlasting 
dancing-master's  party  at  the  Danish  court, 
but  I  do  remember  that  most  other  Hamlets 
since  the  great  Kemble  have  been  bound 
to  do  so.  Mr.  Fechter's  Hamlet,  a  pale, 
wobegone  Norseman,  with  long  flaxen  hair. 


1 68       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

wearing  a  strange  garb  never  associated 
with  the  part  upon  the  EngHsh  stage  (if 
ever  seen  there  at  all),  and  making  a  pirat- 
ical swoop  upon  the  whole  fleet  of  little 
theatrical  prescriptions  without  meaning,  — 
or,  like  Doctor  Johnson's  celebrated  friend, 
with  only  one  idea  in  them,  and  that  a  wrong 
one,  —  never  could  have  achieved  its  ex- 
traordinary success  but  for  its  animation  by 
one  pervading  purpose,  to  which  all  changes 
were  made  intelligibly  subservient.  The 
bearing  of  this  purpose  on  the  treatment  of 
Ophelia,  on  the  death  of  Polonins,  and  on 
the  old  student  fellowship  between  Hamlet 
and  Horatio,  was  exceedingly  striking;  and 
the  difference  between  picturesqueness  of 
stage  arrangement  for  mere  stage  effect, 
and  for  the  elucidation  of  a  meaning,  was 
well  displayed  in  there  having  been  a  gallery 
of  musicians  at  the  play,  and  in  one  of  them 
passing,  on  his  way  out,  with  his  instru- 
ment in  his  hand,  when  Hamlet,  seeing  it, 


Fechter  as  "^Hamlet'' 

From  drawing  by  W.  J   Hennessy 


Fechter  169 

took  it  from  him  to  point  his  talk  with 
Rosencrantz  and  GuildensterYi, 

"  This  leads  me  to  the  observation  with 
which  I  have  all  along  desired  to  conclude: 
that  Mr.  Fechter's  romance  and  picturesque- 
ness  are  always  united  to  a  true  artist's 
intelligence  and  a  true  artist's  training  in 
a  true  artist's  spirit." 

George  Henry  Lewes  declared  Fechter's 
Hamlet  to  be  one  of  the  very  best  he  had 
ever  seen. 

Wilkie  Collins  said  in  1882 :  "  From 
Macready  downward,  I  have,  I  think,  seen 
every  Hamlet  of  any  note  and  mark  during 
the  last  five  and  thirty  years.  The  true 
Hamlet  I  first  saw  when  Fechter  stepped 
on  the  stage.  These  words,  if  they  merely 
expressed  my  own  opinion,  it  is  needless 
to  say  would  never  have  been  written.  But 
they  express  the  opinion  of  every  unpreju- 
diced person  under  fifty  years  of  age  with 


1 70       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

whom  I  have  met.  For  that  reason  let  the 
words  stand." 

That  excellent  actor,  Hermann  Vezin, 
unfortunately  but  little  known  to  his  fellow 
Americans  because  of  his  long  residence  in 
London,  who  had  supported  Fechter  in 
"Hamlet,"  wrote:  "He  played  Hamlet, 
and  took  the  town  by  storm.  His  appear- 
ance, his  easy  grace,  his  freedom  from  the 
vice  of  mouthing,  his  unstilted  style,  de- 
lighted all  but  the  most  bigoted  adherents 
of  the  stagey  school  of  acting.  I  sat  in  the 
stalls  at  one  of  the  rehearsals,  and  was  much 
struck  by  his  manner  of  always  thinking 
the  thought  of  Hamlet  before  he  spoke  the 
words.  I  said  to  him,  *  You  are  going  to 
make  a  great  hit  in  this  part.'  .  .  .  None 
of  his  Shakespearian  attempts  equalled  his 
Hamlet,  .  .  .  Fechter  will  rank  high  in  the 
roll  of  great  actors  who  have  excelled  in  that 
character." 

Button  Cook  said :   "  I  have  seen  perhaps 


Fechter  \J\ 

a  score  of  Hamlets,  including  the  Hamlets 
of  Macready,  of  Charles  Kemble,  of  Emil 
Devrient,  and  Salvini :  it  seems  to  me  that 
Fechter's  Hamlet  ranks  with  the  worthiest 
of  these." 

William  J.  Hennessy,  born  in  Ireland  in 
1839,  was  brought  to  America  ten  years 
later  and  remained  here  until  1870,  when 
he  went  to  London,  where  his  studio  now 
is.  While  in  the  United  States,  he  held  a 
deservedly  high  rank  as  an  illustrator,  his 
work  including  the  admirable  series  of 
drawings  of  Edwin  Booth  in  his  chief  char- 
acters. Since  his  return  to  England,  he 
has  confined  himself  to  painting  in  oil  and 
water-colors.  He  is  a  member  of  the 
National  Academy  of  Design. 


1 72       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 


JEFFERSON 

"  Mr.  Jefferson  is  an  actor  of  exquisite  art.  As 
a  comedian  he  would  hold  his  own  beside  the  finest 
comic  artists  of  France  —  M.  Regnier,  M.  Got,  M. 
Coquelin."  Brander  Matthews. 

A  CERTAIN  likeness  exists  between  Fech- 
ter  and  Jefferson,  —  both  were  artists  as 
well  as  actors.  Fechter's  father,  who  was 
a  talented  sculptor,  wished  his  son  to  follow 
in  the  same  path,  and  for  some  years  Charles 
studied  modelling  with  great  success,  but 
at  last  his  love  for  the  drama  became  too 
strong  to  be  resisted,  and  he  abandoned  the 
studio  for  the  stage. 

Another  French  actor,  Etienne  Melingue, 
who  won  fame  in  romantic  parts,  such  as 
Fechter  shone  in,  —  Monte  Cristo  was  one 
of  them,  —  was  also  a  sculptor  of  genuine 
attainments.  His  two  sons,  Lucien  and 
Gaston    Melingue,    are    painters    of    great 


Jefferson  173 

merit,  some  of  whose  works  have  been  re- 
produced in  the  illustrations  of  this  series. 
The  elder  Melingue,  who  was  likewise  a 
talented  painter,  when  a  young  man  out  of 
an  engagement,  "  joined  a  strolling  company 
on  the  point  of  embarking  at  Havre  for 
Guadaloupe,  where  he  arrived  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1830.  The  first  essays  of  the  motley 
troupe  were  tolerably  successful ;  but  a  sud- 
den rising  of  the  blacks,  and  an  attempt 
made  by  them  to  take  possession  of  the 
places  in  the  theatre  reserved  for  the  whites, 
compelled  the  governor  to  interfere,  and 
order  the  house  to  be  closed.  Thus,  thrown 
upon  their  own  resources,  the  ladies  of  the 
company  were  reduced  to  give  lessons  in 
dancing,  and  their  male  associates  in  fenc- 
ing; whereas  Melingue,  who  knew  nothing 
of  either  accomplishment,  remembered  that 
he  had  formerly  been  a  scene-painter,  and 
boldly  announced  his  readiness  to  take  like- 
nesses *  at  all  prices  and  in  all  sizes.'     It 


174       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

is  presumable  that  at  the  period  in  question 
the  art  of  portrait  painting  in  Guadaloupe 
was  in  its  infancy,  for  no  sooner  had  the 
advertisement  appeared  than  our  hero's 
studio  was  crowded  with  applicants,  mostly 
natives,  and  doubtless  attracted  by  the  mod- 
esty of  the  charges,  which  varied,  according 
to  the  dimensions  of  the  work,  from  ten 
sous  to  two  francs.  *  A  precious  lot  of  ugly 
scoundrels  they  were,'  observed  Melingue, 
long  afterward,  while  recounting  some  of 
his  early  adventures,  *  and  a  pretty  caricature 
I  made  of  them ;  but  they  paid  down  on  the 
nail,  so  that  before  six  months  had  elapsed 
I  had  put  by  a  sufficient  sum  to  defray  the 
cost  of  my  passage,  and  started  in  the  first 
home-bound  vessel  that  sailed  from  the 
portr'  " 

In  1852,  when  acting  the  title  role  in 
"  Benvenuto  Cellini,"  he  modelled  on  the 
stage,  in  a  few  minutes,  a  figure  of  Hebe, 
which  Napoleon  III.,  who  was  present  on 


Jefferson  1 75 

the  occasion,  requested  might  be  reserved 
for  him,  and  gave  it  a  place  of  honor  in 
the  Tuileries.  This  iour  de  force  was  fol- 
lowed, in  "  Sal  vat  or  Rosa,"  by  a  masterly 
sketch  of  a  rocky  landscape,  which  Me- 
lingue  dashed  off  on  canvas  with  similar 
rapidity,  and  renewed  on  each  successive 
performance  of  the  drama. 

Mrs.  Siddons,  it  is  recorded,  used  the 
sculptor's  tools  successfully,  but  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt is  doubtless  the  best  known  actress 
who  has  also  won  distinction  in  art.  As 
long  ago  as  1876  she  gained  an  honorable 
mention  at  the  Paris  Salon,  with  a  group 
entitled  "  After  the  Tempest,"  and  many 
will  remember  the  collection  of  her  paint- 
ings and  sculptures  which  she  brought  with 
her  on  her  first  visit  to  America  in  1880, 
and  which  were  exhibited  in  several  cities. 

A  prominent  English  actor,  J.  Forbes 
Robertson,  has  painted  many  pictures,  in- 
cluding   one    of    the    church    scene    from 


1 76       TJie  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

"  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,"  as  acted  by 
Irving's  company  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre; 
and  Weedon  Grossmith,  a  brother  of  the 
monologist,  George  Grossmith,  is  also  both 
a  well-known  actor  (having  played  Jacques 
Strop  to  Henry  Irving's  Robert  Macaire) 
and  an  artist  whose  works  have  been  shown 
at  the  Royal  Academy. 

The  writer  remembers  visiting  an  exhi- 
bition in  London,  in  1880,  where  all  the 
works  of  art  on  view  were  either  of  actors 
or  hy  them.  Many  names  familiar  to  Brit- 
ish or  American  theatre-goers  appear  in  the 
catalogue,  —  C.  J.  Mathews,  William  Rig- 
nold,  W.  H.  Kendal,  Henry  Neville,  Gene- 
vieve Ward,  E.  H.  Sothern,  George  Con- 
quest, Harry  Paulton,  Ella  Dietz,  Kyrle 
Bellew,  Wilson  Barrett,  Fred  Yokes,  How- 
ard Paul,  and  Ada  Swanborough.  Three 
paintings  by  Joseph  Jefferson  were  shown, 
a  "  Seacoast  at  Sundown,"  a  "  Scotch 
Loch,"  and  a  "  Lake  Scene  in  America,''  the 


Joseph  Jefferson 

From  a  photograph 


Jefferson  I  yj 

last  named  being  lent  by  the  actor's  son- 
in-law,  the  late  B.  L.  Farjeon,  novelist.  All 
the  pictures  by  Mathews  in  this  collection 
were  landscapes,  and,  as  these  titles  suggest, 
it  is  in  landscape  painting  that  the  genial 
"  Rip  "  delights  to  spend  such  leisure  hours 
as  can  be  spared  from  acting  and  fishing. 

Some  of  his  best  pictures  have  for  their 
subject  the  cypress  swamps  of  Louisiana, 
where  Mr.  Jefferson  owns  a  large  planta- 
tion, but  his  brush  is  not  by  any  means  lim- 
ited to  such  scenes. 

And  when  the  actor  is  seen  no  more  upon 
our  stage,  he  will  leave  behind  him  not  only 
the  memory  of  a  famed  comedian,  — 

"A  fellow  of  infinite  jest,"  — 

but  also  that  of  an  artist  endowed  with 
both  sympathy  and  imagination. 


1/8       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 


SALVINI 

"  Salvini  is  above  all  rules  and  beyond  all  com- 
parison." W.   E.   Henley. 

Some  years  since,  Salvini,  after  much  per- 
suasion, consented  to  commit  to  writing  his 
reasons  for  interpreting  as  he  has  the  vari- 
ous Shakespearian  characters  played  by  him. 
The  paper  was  published  in  a  leading  Ital- 
ian weekly,  and  from  a  translation  by  Miss 
Helen  Zimmern  the  following  extracts,  re- 
ferring to  Salvini's  Macbeth,  are  taken. 

He  says  first :  "  Before  undertaking  the 
study  of  the  characters  of  Hamlet,  Macbeth, 
King  Lear,  and  Othello,  I  consulted  the 
legends  whence  the  poet  had  obtained  his 
themes.  I  had  all  the  English  and  German 
commentaries  and  criticisms  translated  for 
me,  and  read  the  Italian,  French,  and  Span- 
ish ones.     The  two  first  were  obscure,  and 


Salvini  1 79 

SO  extraordinarily  at  variance  among  them- 
selves that  I  could  not  form  an  exact  crite- 
rion ;  the  Italian  sinned  from  the  same  cause 
and  from  their  pretensions  to  be  an  infallible 
judgment;  the  French  were  vague,  airy, 
and  full  of  Gallic  fantasticalities.  The  de- 
scendants of  Cervantes  and  Lope  de  Vega 
persuaded  me  most,  but,  all  things  consid- 
ered, I  resolved  to  interrogate  no  other  com- 
mentator on  these  English  works  but  Shake- 
speare himself.  Oh,  artists  of  the  dramatic 
world,  do  not  confuse  your  minds  by  seeking 
for  the  sources  of  his  various  characters. 
It  is  from  his  well  alone  that  you  can  quench 
your  ardor  to  know.  Go  direct  to  him, 
study  him  in  every  phrase  with  diligent  pa- 
tience. Do  not  tire.  When  you  think  you 
have  done,  recommence,  persevere.  Shake- 
speare is  never  studied  too  much. 

"  MachetKs  character,"  according  to  the 
Italian  actor,  "  is  the  absolute  antithesis  ol 
that  of  Hamlet.     If  Hamlet  may  be  defined 


1 80       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

as  '  force  of  thought  above  action,'  the  con- 
ception of  Macbeth  may  be  defined  as  that 
of  '  force  of  action  above  thought.'  It  is 
always  Shakespeare  who  leads  me  to  observe 
these  things  by  his  own  words.  Thus  he 
makes  his  protagonist  say  in  the  second  act : 

*  Words  to  the  heat  of  deeds  too  cold  breath 
gives.    I  gO'  and  it  is  done; '  and  in  the  third : 

*  Strange  things  I  have  in  head,  that  will  to 
hand,  which  must  be  acted  ere  they  can  be 
scanned ; '  and  again  in  the  fourth  act  he 
says :  *  The  flighty  purpose  never  is  o'er- 
took,  unless  the  deed  go  with  it.  To  crown 
my  thoughts  with  acts,  be  it  thought  and 
done.'  It  seems  to  me  that  my  definition 
has  no  need  of  further  commentary." 

"  Macbeth''  he  points  out,  "  is  a  man  who 
would  have  hesitated  at  nothing.  Had 
noble  deeds  been  required  for  him  to  attain 
his  end,  he  would  have  flooded  the  kingdom 
with  them.  If  he  hesitated  a  second  before 
murdering  Duncan,  it  was  that  he  re\'olted 


Salvini  as  "  (Macbeth  '* 

From  water-color  by  Charles  S.  Abbe 


Salvini  i8i 

at  the  thought  of  assassination,  of  killing 
without  opposition.  When  he  sees  the  spec- 
tre, what  he  craves  is  peace  from  such  dis- 
turbances, not  expiation.  The  upshot  of  his 
conversation  with  the  Doctor  proves,  ac- 
cording to  Signor  Salvini,  that  he  does  not 
repent  of  what  he  has  done,  but  that  the 
visions  disturb  him,  and  that  he  defies  them, 
combats  them,  and  conquers  them  with  his 
strong  spirit.  *  He  is  grand,  this  sangui- 
nary, ambitious  man!  But  superstition  is 
his  Achilles's  heel,  and  by  it  he  falls.  If  I 
sought  a  comparison  with  a  similar  char- 
acter, I  should  cite  the  son  of  Pope  Alex- 
ander VI.,  the  famous  Duke  Valentino 
Caesar  Borgia,  who,  like  Macbeth,  could 
find  no  other  means  to  maintain  his  power 
but  poison  and  arms ;  but  he  committed  low 
deeds  and  obscenities  not  imputable  to  Mac- 
beth, and  therefore  the  usurper  of  the  Scotch 
throne,  for  all  his  ferocity,  appears  more 
majestic.     When  I  read  this  grand  tragedy 


1 82       The  Creat  Masters  of  the  t)ramd 

for  the  first  time,  I  expected  to  see  the  som- 
nambulist scene  of  the  wife  followed  by  one 
of  the  husband,  and  it  was  quite  difficult  to 
persuade  myself  of  the  contrary.  It  seems 
extravagant,  this  effect  produced  on  my 
mind,  but  yet  it  seems  to  me  justifiable.  The 
somnambulist  scene  takes  place  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth  act,  and  up  to  then  neither 
the  waiting-maid  nor  the  doctor  has  given 
a  hint  of  such  a  condition.  No  one  expects 
it  or  has  reason  to  foresee  it.  It  is  Lady 
Macbeth  who  has  ever  been  the  strong  one, 
who  has  called  him  coward,  laughed  at  his 
hallucinations,  never  a  single  word  of  re- 
morse or  repentance  from  her  lips.  How, 
then,  comes  this  resolute  woman  suddenly 
to  falsify  the  terrible  but  grand  impression 
the  audience  has  gained  of  her  up  to  now? 
And  why  has  the  author,  ever  rigidly  ob- 
servant to  maintain  his  characters  the  same 
from  beginning  to  end,  made  an  exception 
for  Lady  Macbeth?    Is  it  illness  that  makes 


Salvlni  1 83 

her  weak  and  vacillating?  It  may  be;  but 
this  scene  seems  to  me  originally  composed 
for  Macbeth,  and  afterward  changed  for 
the  benefit  of  some  actor  (actresses  were  not 
then  employed)  who,  perhaps,  did  not  think 
the  part  he  had  to  sustain  sufficient.  I  thank 
him  from  my  heart  for  having  taken  it  from 
Macbeth;  the  burden  of  this  role  is  suffi- 
ciently exorbitant.'  An  original  idea  cer- 
tainly on  Signor  Salvini's  part." 

These  quotations  from  Salvini's  essay 
show  something  of  the  care  and  study  that 
the  great  tragedian  expends  on  his  wonder- 
ful impersonations. 


1 84       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 


EDWIN    BOOTH 

"That  face  which  no  man  ever  saw 
And  from  his  memory  banished  quite. 
With  eyes  in  which  are  Hamlet's  awe 
And    Cardinal    Richelieu's    subtle    light, 
Looks  from  this  frame." 

Thomas   Bailey  Aldrich 
(Om  Sargent's  portrait  of  Booth). 

On  a  memorable  occasion,  Salvini  and 
Booth  acted  together  for  a  few  nights  at 
the  Academy  of  Music,  New  York,  in  the 
spring  of  1886,  the  ItaHan  tragedian  play- 
ing Othello  and  the  Ghost  in  "  Hamlet "  to 
Booth's  lago  and  Hamlet. 

Booth  first  played  Richelieu  in  Sacra- 
mento, California,  in  1856,  when  he  was 
but  twenty-three  years  of  age.  It  was  the 
most  successful  part  among  those  he  pre- 
sented on  his  first  visit  to  London  in  1861, 
and  at  the  time  of  his  second  engagement  in 


Edwin  Booth  185 

the  English  capital,  in  1880,  the  Athen<£um 
printed  this  flattering  notice  of  the  perform- 
ance: 

"  Mr.  Booth's  Richelieu  is  an  admirably 
conscientious,  thoughtful,  and  artistic  per- 
formance. In  this  character  the  signifi- 
cance of  Mr.  Booth's  method  is  revealed, 
and  the  reputation  it  has  won  for  him  in  the 
United  States  becomes  comprehensible  to 
the  English  public.  Almost  for  the  first 
time  in  recent  days  the  full  value  of  an 
artistic  method  has  been  made  apparent  by 
an  English-speaking  actor  to  an  English 
audience.  Those  actors  who,  like  Mr.  Irv- 
ing, Fechter,  or  even  Signor  Salvini,  have 
won  warmest  recognition,  have  done  so  ap- 
parently on  the  strength  of  personal  gifts 
and  of  a  species  of  magnetic  or  sympathetic 
influence,  which  enabled  them  to  dispense 
with  apparent  method,  and,  in  certain  in- 
stances, overleap  it.  In  the  case  of  Signor 
Salvini,  what  looked  like  nature  was  prob- 


I S6       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

ably  an  outcome  of  highest  art;  with  Mr. 
Irving,  and  in  a  certain  degree  with  Fech- 
ter,  what  was  best  was  a  direct  outcome  of 
individuaHty.  Through  a  direct  inspira- 
tion, Mr.  Irving  attained  the  really  splendid 
effect  which  is  witnessed  in  Hamlet,  when  he 
springs,  after  the  play  scene,  into  the  throne 
vacated  by  the  king,  or  that  not  less  fine 
effect  in  Richelieu  when,  after  the  depar- 
ture of  the  baffled  murderers,  he  puts  his 
head  through  the  curtains  of  his  bedroom. 
By  much  slower,  and  it  may  be  surer,  proc- 
esses, Mr.  Booth  reaches  a  result  not  less 
fine.  .  .  .  Mr.  Booth's  Richelieu  is  a  sus- 
tained and  an  exquisite  performance.  At 
one  or  two  points  it  displays  electrical  pas- 
sion, and  it  is  throughout  admirable  in  fin- 
ish. Those  passages  in  which  Richelieu 
confronts  the  cowering  minion  of  the  king 
and  defies  him  to  touch  the  woman  around 
whom  is  thrown  the  protection  of  the 
Churchy  are  naturally  the  favorites  with  the 


Edwin  Booth  187 

playgoer.  Far  higher,  however,  than  the 
merit  of  these  passages  is  that  of  the  grace, 
beauty,  and  completeness  of  the  whole.  .  .  . 
All  that  was  seen  was  the  fierce,  subtle,  and 
indomitable  prelate  in  the  very  guise  in 
which  he  has  been  conceived  by  Lord  Lyt- 
ton.  The  appearance  was  singularly  like  the 
best-known  pictures  of  Richelieu,  and  the 
character  of  the  astute,  unscrupulous  man 
was  presented  to  the  life." 

William  Winter,  the  close  friend  and  biog- 
rapher of  Booth,  thus  wrote  of  his  Richelieu: 

"  Booth's  personation  of  Richelieu  has  by 
many  acute  critics  been  accounted  his  best 
work  of  art.  .  .  .  The  character  is  one  that 
assimilates,  at  many  points,  with  Edwin 
Booth's  temperament,  and  one  that  is  mar- 
vellously well  adapted  to  catch  the  sympa- 
thies of  mankind.  Appearing  as  the  soldier- 
priest,  the  tragedian  has  never  failed  to  win 
the  popular  heart.  No  piece  of  acting  is 
better  known  in  this  generation,  and  —  ex- 


1 88       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

cq>t  it  be  Jefferson's  matchless  performance 
of  Rip  Van  Winkle  —  no  piece  of  acting  is 
more  admired.  .  .  . 

"  Booth's  Richelieu  is  one  of  the  most 
powerful,  symmetrical,  and  picturesque 
works  of  dramatic  art  with  which  the  stage 
is  adorned.  It  may  not  reproduce  the  car- 
dinal of  history.  That  result  was  not  essen- 
tial. It  certainly  does  embody  the  cardinal 
of  the  drama.  .  .  .  That  Booth  looks  the 
character  is  a  matter  of  course.  His  weird, 
thoughtful,  spiritual  face  and  his  slender, 
priestlike  figure  —  made  up  with  the  con- 
comitants of  age  and  clothed  in  the  requisite 
and  accurate  ecclesiastical  garments  —  com- 
bine in  a  perfect  presentment  of  the  fiery 
soul  in  the  aged  and  puny  body.  The  phys- 
ical realization  could  not  be  improved." 

Edmund  Clarence  Stedman  wrote  of  the 
famous  "  curse  scene "  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  act  of  "  Richelieu  "  :  "  We  moderns, 
who  so  feebly  catch  the  spell  which  made  the 


Edwin  "Booth  as  "  l^ickelteu  " 

From  painting  by  John  Collier 


Edwin  Booth  189 

Church  of  Rome  sovereign  of  sovereigns  for 
a  thousand  years,  have  it  cast  upon  us  in 
the  scene  where  the  cardinal,  deprived  of 
temporal  power  and  defending  his  beautiful 
ward  from  royalty  itself,  draws  around  her 
that  Church's  *  awful  circle,'  and  cries  to 
Bar  ados: 

"  *  Set  but  a  foot  within  that  holy  ground 
And  on  thy  head  —  yea,  though  it  wore  a  crown  — 
/  launch  the  curse  of  Rome! ' 

"  Booth's  expression  of  this  climax  is 
wonderful.  There  is  perhaps  nothing,  of  its 
own  kind,  to  equal  it  upon  the  present  stage. 
Well  may  the  king's  haughty  parasites  cower 
and  shrink  aghast  from  the  ominous  voice, 
the  finger  of  doom,  the  arrows  of  those  lurid, 
unbearable  eyes ! " 

John  Collier's  vivid  realization  of  the  actor 
in  this  episode  of  Bulwer's  drama,  painted 
in  London,  was  given  by  Edwin  Booth  to 
his  friend  William  Bispham,  who  afterward 


1 90       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama     * 

presented  it  to  the  Player's  Club,  which 
Booth's  munificence  founded,  and  of  which 
he  was  the  first  president. 

The  artist,  born  in  London  in  1850,  was 
a  pupil  of  Poynter,  Laurens,  and  Alma 
Tadema.  Among  the  many  portraits  of  men 
of  mark  painted  by  Collier  are  those  of  Dar- 
win, Huxley  (whose  daughter  he  married), 
Rudyard  Kipling,  and  Henry  Irving.  His 
subject  pictures  are  numerous,  and  include 
**'  The  Last  Voyage  of  Henry  Hudson,"  be- 
longing to  the  National  Gallery  of  British 
Art;  "  The  Death  of  Cleopatra,"  "  Clytem- 
nestra,"  "  Circe,"  and  "  In  the  Forest  of 
Arden." 


John  McCullough  191 


JOHN    McCULLOUGH 

"His  friends  are  glad  to  remember  him,  not 
merely  as  'the  best  Roman  actor  seen  this  many  a 
day,'  but  the  strong  and  hearty  man  whose  smile 
brightened  even  dull  London  town,  and  the  warm 
grasp  of  whose  hand  was  that  of  one  whose  name 
was  truth."  Clinton  Stuart. 

On  a  certain  Washington's  Birthday, 
some  twenty-five  years  since,  the  writer  saw 
John  McCullough  play  Coriolanus  at  the 
Boston  Theatre,  "  after  the  high  Roman 
fashion"  (as  Cleopatra  says),  and  worthily 
indeed  the  tragedian  placed  before  us  the 
noble  figure  of  Shakespeare's  hero. 

The  excellent  review  of  McCullough's  per- 
formance which  appeared  in  the  Boston 
Daily  Advertiser  at  the  time,  and  was,  pre- 
sumably, written  by  Mr.  Henry  A.  Clapp, 
well  deserves  reprinting,  and  I  give  it  here. 

"  In  his  impersonation  ol  Caitis  Marcius 


192       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

last  night,  Mr.  McCullough  may  be  said  to 
have  met  the  high  expectations  which  had 
been  formed  by  all  who  saw  him  in  Vir- 
ginius.  He  looks  and  moves  almost  an  ideal 
Roman  of  the  ancient  type,  —  with  the  gait 
and  bearing  of  one  belonging  to  a  race  of 
conquerors.  In  this  tragedy  he  conceives  his 
part  clearly,  and  plays  it  with  the  directness, 
force,  and  self-consistency  of  one  entirely 
possessed  by  his  idea.  His  Caius  Marcius 
has  the  magnificent  and  simple  dignity  of 
one  born  to  wear  the  patrician  toga;  his 
pride  is  almost  passionate  in  its  intensity, 
but  this  trait  also  is  perfectly  simple,  is  free 
from  the  least  touch  of  self-distrust  or  the 
self-consciousness  which  is  bred  of  self-dis- 
trust ;  he  has  the  very  virtue  of  modesty,  and 
loves  no  praise  but  that  of  his  mother.  To 
these  qualities,  so  curiously  mixed  of  good 
and  evil,  must  be  added  his  stern  incorrupt- 
ibility, his  domestic  purity,  his  lofty  courage 
and  truth,  and  his  unflinching  loyalty  to  his 


John  McCti Hough  193 

convictions.  And  the  picture  remains  en- 
tirely incomplete  if  we  omit  to  name  a  vio- 
lence of  temper  so  extreme  that  under  its 
gusts  of  passion  every  other  power  and  fac- 
ulty of  his  nature  is  swayed  like  a  reed  in 
the  wind.  Mr.  McCuUough  presents  all 
this  and  more  than  all  this  with  exceptional 
force  and,  as  we  have  said,  with  rare  direct- 
ness and  simplicity.  In  few  words,  his  as- 
sumption seems  a  creation  and  not  a  com- 
position. We  may  select  for  special  praise 
his  fierce  haughtiness  and  scarcely  restrained 
fury  of  disgust  in  his  first  encounters  with 
the  plebeian  crowd,  and  the  contemptuous 
irony  with  which  he  solicits  their  voices  when 
he  stands  for  consul.  In  this  last  position, 
Mr.  McCullough  dwells  too  much,  we  think, 
upon  the  personal  offensiveness  of  the  ill- 
smelling  crowd,  though  he  makes  his  ex- 
pressions of  repulsion  very  effective,  the 
overemphasis  of  one  unpleasant  idea  de- 
tracting from  the  imaginative  significance 


194       ^^^  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

of  the  situation,  for  it  is  the  patrician  hauteur 
rather  than  the  patrician  nose  that  is  most 
displeasedo  In  the  early  interviews  with  his 
wife  and  child,  Mr.  McCullough  showed  the 
fine  sweetness  and  tenderness  which  are  so 
often  and  so  beautifully  displayed  in  his 
strong  parts,  and  in  his  speech  with  his 
mother  there  was  added  to  these  a  grave, 
deep-reaching  reverence,  through  which 
breathed  the  peculiar  virtue  of  the  ancient 
republic.  It  would  be  hard  to  exceed  the 
cold,  contemptuous  dignity  with  which  he 
turned  his  back  upon  the  people  after  his 
banishment.  Mr.  McCullough's  once  rather 
marked  weakness  for  sudden  explosiveness 
of  speech  seems  to  have  been  partially  cured, 
and  in  the  furious  temper  of  Coriolanus  it 
finds  justifiable  opportunities,  and  never,  ex- 
cept in  one  instance,  does  it  wholly  fail  to 

*  beget '    that    *  temperance '    which    should 

*  give  it  smoothness.'  In  carrying  out  a  sin- 
gle part  of  such  exceptional  prominence,  Mr. 


Lawrence  Barrett  as  "  Cassius  " 

From  a  photograph 


John  McCullough  as  "  Coriolanus'' 

From  a  photograph 


John  McCullough  I^J 

McCullough  sometimes  compels  the  critical 
observer  to  the  thought  that  the  artist  has 
not  such  variety  and  imaginativeness  of 
method  as  wholly  to  save  him  from  the 
charge  of  sameness,  but  the  test  furnished 
by  the  character  is  a  most  severe  one,  and 
it  is  much  to  have  presented  the  character 
of  Caius  Marcius  Coriolanus  with  a  sus- 
tained dignity,  vitality,  force,  and  artistic 
propriety  which  give  it  at  once  a  place 
among  one's  best  and  most  vivid  experiences 
of  the  stage." 


196       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 


LAWRENCE   BARRETT 

"Mr.  Barrett  has  done  more  than  any  one  else  in 
America  to  present  the  higher  drama  under  can- 
ditions  of  artistic  completeness,  and  to  stimulate  the 
literary  and  artistic  development  of  a  stage  impressed 
with  his  own  character  and  taste." 

W.  M.  Laffan. 

One  of  the  earliest  attempts  made  by 
Lawrence  Barrett  to  secure  the  public  favor 
for  new  plays  by  native  writers  was  his  pro- 
duction of  Mr.  Howells's  dramatization  of 
his  own  charming  "  Counterfeit  Present- 
ment," which  he  brought  out  in  Cincinnati, 
in  October,  1877.  A  more  ambitious  en- 
deavor was  "  A  New  Play  "  (the  title  of  this 
was  afterward  changed  to  "  Yorick's 
Love"),  translated  and  adapted  by  Mr. 
Howells  from  the  Spanish  of  Joaquin  Este- 
banez,  the  action  of  which  takes  place  in  the 
Globe  Theatre  of  Shakespeare's  time.    This 


Lawrence  Barrett  19/ 

was  produced  at  Cleveland,  in  October, 
1878. 

Another  noteworthy  production  was  Will- 
iam Young's  Arthurian  drama,  in  verse,  en- 
titled "  Pendragon,"  first  seen  in  Chicago, 
in  November,  1881,  and  a  fourth  was  George 
Henry  Boker's  tragedy  based  on  the  story 
of  Francesca  da  Rimini,  produced  by  Barrett 
at  Philadelphia,  September,  1882. 

Other  less  important  productions  testify  to 
the  actor's  high-minded  desire  to  add  mer- 
itorious works  to  his  repertory,  and  his 
death,  at  the  comparatively  early  age  of  fifty- 
three,  was  a  distinct  loss  tO'  the  American 
stage.  While  Barrett's  Harebell  was  un- 
doubtedly one  of  his  finest  personations,  the 
highest  place  among  them  is  generally  given 
to  his  performance  of  Cassius,  in  which  he 
was  often  seen  dividing  the  honors  of  the 
play  with  Booth  and  Davenport. 

When  Barrett  played  Cassius  in  the  mem- 
orable performance  of  "  Julius  Caesar "  at 


193       llie  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Booth's  Theatre  In  the  December  of  1871, 
William  Winter  said  in  the  Tribune:  "  Mr. 
Barrett,  who  was  welcomed  with  lively  in- 
terest and  applause,  acted  Cassius  with  splen- 
did spirit  and  great  effect.  On  a  previous 
occasion  we  have  expressed  the  opinion  that 
this  is  a  work  of  absolute  genius.  It  will  suf- 
fice now  to  remark  that  it  easily  bore  away  the 
richest  honors  of  last  night's  performance." 
George  Edgar  Montgomery  paid  a  tribute 
to  the  actor  in  these  words :  "  His  Cassius 
is  the  most  truthful  and  impressive  Shake- 
spearian performance  that  he  has  given  us ;  " 
and  Edward  A.  Dithmar  wrote :  "  His 
splendid  Cassius,  a  part  for  which  he  seems 
to  have  been  made,  has  its  full  measure  of 
admiration.  ...  It  is  not  likely  that  the 
stage  has  ever  known  a  finer  performance  of 
the  subtle  Roman.  His  best  part,  judged 
from  every  point  of  view,  is  Cassius.  There 
is  not  a  false  tone  in  that  vivid,  forceful, 
thoroughly  human  portrayal." 


Henry  Irving  and  Ellen  Terry      199 


HENRY  IRVING  AND  ELLEN  TERRY 

"I  don't  know  that  I  remember  having  seen  a 
greater  performance  by  any  actor,  not  even  excepting 
Macready's   Werner.     It  is  wonderful." 

John  Gilbert,  on  Irving' s  Louis  XI. 

"  She  is  as  near  absolute  perfection  as  any  one 
can  be."  Sarah  Bernhardt,  on  Ellen  Terry. 

W.  G.  WiLLs's  beautiful  version  o-f  Gold- 
smith's "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  "  was  first  pro- 
duced at  the  Court  Theatre,  on  March  30, 
1878.  The  play  achieved  instant  success, 
Hermann  Vezin  acting  Doctor  Primrose  ad- 
mirably, and  Ellen  Terry,  for  whom  the  part 
had  been  written,  winning  a  complete 
triumph  as  Olivia. 

Miss  Terry  has  declared  that  it  was  her 
popularity  in  this  part  which  led  Mr.  Irving 
to  engage  her  as  leading  lady  for  his  com- 
pany at  the  Lyceum  Theatre,  of  which  he 
became  manager  at  that  time.    However  this 


200      The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

may  be,  the  fact  remains  that  in  December 
of  the  same  year  that  saw  the  production  of 
"  OH  via,"  Ellen  Terry  made  her  first  appear- 
ance before  a  Lyceum  audience,  playing 
Ophelia  to  the  Hamlet  of  Henry  Irving,  thus 
beginning  the  remarkable  series  of  dramatic 
successes  with  which  the  world  of  theatre- 
goers is  familiar. 

About  seven  years  after  the  initial  presen- 
tation of  "  Olivia,"  it  was  most  successfully 
revived  at  the  Lyceum,  with  Ellen  Terry  in 
her  original  part,  Irving  as  Doctor  Primrose, 
and  William  Terriss  as  Squire  Thornhill. 

Clement  Scott,  the  well-known  critic, 
wrote  of  the  revival :  "  For  seven  years  the 
Olivia  of  Miss  Ellen  Terry  has  been  laid  up 
in  lavender,  and  the  picture  of  a  loving  and 
lovable  woman,  with  all  her  waywardness, 
trust,  disappointment,  and  anguish,  is  pre- 
sented to  us  with  an  added  sweetness  and  a 
deepening  color.  The  artist  evidently  has 
not  put  this  admirable  study  of  a  true  woman 


Henry  Irving  and  Ellen  Terry  in  "  Olivi 

From  a  photograph 


Henry  Irving  and  Ellen  Terry      201 

wholly  out  of  her  mind.  She  has  not  played 
the  part  for  a  long  time  on  the  stage,  but  she 
must  often  have  thought  of  it.  New  ideas, 
fresh  suggestions,  innumerable  delicate 
touches,  never  lost  on  the  observant  spec- 
tator, have  been  brought  to  bear  on  the  new 
Olivia,  who  stands  out  as  one  of  the  most 
striking  personations  —  as  fine  in  perspec- 
tive as  in  outline,  as  tender  in  thought  as  it 
is  true  in  sentiment  —  that  the  modern  stage 
has  seen.  In  the  first  act  of  the  play,  Miss 
Ellen  Terry  has  little  more  to  do  than  strike 
the  key-note  of  the  poem.  She  has  to  show 
how  Olivia  is  the  fairest  of  the  old  vicar's 
flock,  the  loveliest  and  most  winsome  of  his 
many  children,  the  loved  companion  of  her 
brothers  and  sisters,  her  father's  idol.  .  .  . 
But  for  all  that,  simple  parson's  daughter  as 
she  is,  inexperienced  in  the  world  and  its 
ways,  she  already  shows  how  strong  and 
absolute  is  the  affectionate  nature  that  is  in 
her.    She  loves  the  young  squire,  not  because 


202       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

he  has  a  fine  coat  and  winning  manners,  not 
because  he  is  above  her  in  social  station,  but 
because  her  nature  leans  toward  some  one 
who  appears  stronger  in  character  and  less 
dependent  on  love  than  herself.  .  .  .  We 
come  to  the  second  scene.  Love,  the  master, 
has  worked  havoc  in  Olivia's  heart.  Grad- 
ually, but  very  delicately,  Miss  Terry  shows 
how  her  father  is  forgotten  for  the  sake  of 
her  lover.  She  hates  Burchell  because  he 
dares  to  doubt  the  man  she  loves.  She  de- 
fends her  Thornhill  with  a  woman's  des- 
peration and  a  woman's  unreason.  He  may 
have  deceived  other  women,  but  he  loves  me ! 
That  is  her  argument,  and  it  is  urged  with 
brilliant  petulance. 

"  The  second  scene  with  Thornhill  brings 
out  some  vei-y  subtle  suggestions.  It  is  as 
excellently  played  by  Mr.  Terriss  as  by  Miss 
Terry.  Both  are  goaded  on  by  destiny.  For 
a  moment  she  would  hold  back,  and  so  would 
he.    She  cannot  forget  her  father,  nor  he  his 


Henry  Irving  and  Ellen  Terry      203 

honor.  The  man  is  not  wholly  reckless  yet. 
There  is  a  pause,  but  it  is  momentary.  Self- 
ishness prevails;  the  strong  man  conquers, 
not  the  weak,  but  the  loving  woman;  and 
once  she  has  given  her  promise,  we  know 
that  she  will  not  turn  back.  .  .  .  Then  comes 
that  exquisite  scene  when,  at  the  twilight 
hour,  Olivia  distributes  her  little  presents 
to  the  loved  ones  before  she  steals  away  from 
home  to  join  the  lover  of  her  future  life.  .  .  . 
Miss  Terry's  .  .  .  fine  power  of  absolutely 
identifying  herself  with  the  situation,  the 
real  tears  that  course  down  her  cheeks,  the 
struggle  to  repress  as  much  as  to  express, 
make  this  one  of  the  most  pathetic  moments. 
.  .  .  It  is,  however,  in  the  third  act  that 
Miss  Terry's  acting  has  most  visibly  im- 
proved. She  has  here  emphasized  the  con- 
trast between  the  happy  married  woman  and 
the  heart-broken,  despairing  dupe.  The 
actress  begins  the  scene  with  an  access  of 
gaiety.    If  ThornhilVs  love  had  grown  more 


204       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

cold,  hers  has  gained  in  force  and  impetuos- 
ity. Her  object  now  is  to  retain  her  lover 
by  her  side.  Her  short  life  with  him  has 
intensified  her  affection.  She  coquettes  with 
him,  she  hangs  close  to  his  neck,  she  laughs 
and  is  merry.  «  .  .  Suddenly,  and  without 
warning,  comes  the  storm  which  is  to  wreck 
her  life.  Her  lover  tells  her  that  he  has  de- 
ceived her.  She  is  not  his  wife.  The  an- 
nouncement at  first  stuns  her.  She  cannot 
believe  or  understand.  She  beats  her  brains 
to  get  at  the  truth.  The  realization  of  her 
situation  is  awful.  Father,  mother,  home, 
friends,  contempt,  humiliation,  crowd  before 
her  eyes  like  ghastly  spectres;  the  love  has 
suddenly  changed  to  savage  hate,  and  as 
Thornhill  advances  to  comfort  her,  she 
strikes  him  on  the  breast,  and  in  that  one 
word,  *  Devil ! '  is  summed  up  the  unspeak- 
able horror  that  afflicts  her  soul.  But  as  yet 
the  act  is  not  nearly  over.  The  most  beauti- 
ful passages  of  it  have  yet  to  come,  when 


Henry  Irving  and  Ellen  Terry     205 

her  father  returns  to  rescue  the  lamb  that  is 
on  the  road.  Never  before  to  our  recollec- 
tion on  the  stage  has  woman's  grief  been 
depicted  with  such  infinite  truth.  Olivia  has 
been  beaten  and  sorely  bruised;  but  in  her 
father's  arms  she  is  safe.  .  .  .  She  feels  she 
is  forgiven  and  at  rest.  .  .  .  Such  acting  as 
is  contained  in  the  Olivia  of  Ellen  Terry,  as 
fine  in  conception  as  it  is  impressive  in  effect, 
is  seen  very  rarely  on  the  stage  of  any  coun- 
try  

"  Unquestionably,  also,  the  play  is  made 
doubly  interesting  by  the  reading  of  the 
vicar  given  by  Mr.  Henry  Irving,  a  perform- 
ance more  carefully  restrained  and  modu- 
lated, a  study  more  innocent  of  trick  and  less 
disfigured  by  characteristics  of  marked  style 
and  individuality  than  anything  he  has  at- 
tempted before.  .  .  .  Mr.  Irving's  vicar  is 
a  dignified,  resigned,  and  most  pathetic  fig- 
ure, who  lingers  on  the  mind  long  after  the 
theatre  is  quitted,  .  .  .  The  best  idea  that 


2o6       Ihe  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

came  into  the  actor's  mind  and,  in  effect,  the 
finest  moment  of  his  acting,  was  in  the  scene 
where  the  vicar  comes  to  rescue  his  daugh- 
ter. For  a  moment,  troubled  and  travel- 
stained  as  he  is,  he  breaks  away  from  her  and 
remembers  that  he  has  a  duty  to  perform. 
He  loves  the  child  surpassingly  well,  but  he 
is  her  father,  and  she  has  erred.  He  has  to 
summon  up  all  his  courage  for  a  homily  on 
her  lost  sense  of  duty.  He  nerves  himself 
for  what  he  conceives  to  be'  necessary,  and 
begins  with  tears  starting  in  his  eyes  to  tell 
Olivia  of  her  grievous  fault.  But  the  old 
man  breaks  down  over  the  effort  of  forced 
calm;  the  strain  is  too  much  for  him;  all 
at  once  he  melts,  he  casts  aside  the  manner  of 
the  priest,  and  calling  Olivia  to  his  arms, 
becomes  her  loving  father  once  more.  The 
effect  of  this  was  instantaneous.  The  house 
was  astonished  and  delighted.  As  regards 
acting,  it  was  a  moment  of  true  inspiration, 
a  masterpiece  of  invention." 


Coquelin  207 


COQUELIN 

"  M.  Coquelin  is  really  the  Balzac  of  actors." 

Henry  James. 

That  trenchant  writer,  the  late  W.  E. 
Henley,  printed  some  years  ago  a  paper  upon 
Coquelin  which  is  a  most  valuable  estimate 
of  the  distinguished  French  actor. 

Henley  says,  "To  tell  the  truth,  M. 
Coquelin  is  so  excellent  an  actor  that  under 
Salvini  I  know  not  where  to  look  for  his 
equal.  Mr.  Henry  James  said  of  him  years 
ago  that  he  had  more  temperament  than  M. 
Got  and  as  much  art,  and  I  agree  with  Mr. 
Henry  James.  He  has  played  many  parts, 
and  —  good,  bad,  and  indifferent  —  he  has 
played  them  all  incomparably.  Nature  in- 
tended him  for  a  great  actor ;  education  and 
opportunity  have  made  him  a  great  artist. 
It  is  recorded  of  him  that  at  the  beginning, 


2o8       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

as  Regnier's  pupil  (he  is  Regnier's  best 
work),  he  failed,  and  failed  conspicuously. 
With  his  wide  mouth  and  brilliant  eye,  his 
impudent  nose  and  vibrant  voice,  he  seemed 
designed  by  nature  for  the  prince  of  Scapins 
and  Mascarilles;  but  his  first  efforts  in  this 
direction  were  far  from  notable,  and  when 
Regnier,  changing  completely  the  bent  of  his 
education,  began  to  train  him  for  the  per- 
formance of  old  men's  parts,  and  produced 
him  finally  as  the  Orgon  of  the  *  Tartuffe,' 
the  result  was  a  cruel  fiasco.  It  was,  so  far 
as  I  know,  the  last  with  which  this  admirable 
actor  has  been  credited.  He  resumed  his 
practice  upon  the  heroic  rascaldom  of 
Moliere  and  Regnard,  and  at  four  and 
twenty  or  so  he  made  his  first  great  hit  as 
the  Figaro  of  the  '  Mariage.'  He  was  half- 
dead,  they  say,  with  stage  fright,  and,  his 
weakness  aiding,  he  played  the  part  in  a 
tragic  vein  that  was  accepted  as  not  a 
blunder,  but  a  revelation.    Since  then  he  has 


Coquelin  209 

touched  nothing-  which  he  has  not  adorned. 
Big  parts  and  httle,  the  old  repertory  and 
the  new,  MoHere  and  Hugo,  Marivaux  and 
Augier,  '  Le  Joueur '  and  *  Le  Fils  Natu- 
rel,'  *  Jean  Dacier '  and  *  Le  Monde  Oti 
rOn  s'Ennuie/  Banville  and  Scribe,  — 
he  has  played  in  all,  and  in  all  he  has  ex- 
celled. From  first  to  last  his  career  has  been 
one  of  hard  work  and  artistic  uprightness 
and  unselfishness.  He  has  never  disdained 
tO'  play  small  and  secondary  parts :  the  danc- 
ing dandy  and  the  huntsman  of  *  Les 
Facheux,'  the  ridiculous  marquis  of  *  Le 
Joueur,'  the  Dubois  of  *  Le  Misanthrope,' 
the  Lucas  of  *  Don  Juan,'  the  M.  Loyal  of 
the  *  Tartuffe ; '  and  in  playing  these  per- 
fectly he  learned  to  become  the  perfect  ex- 
ponent of  greater  and  more  perilous  matter : 
the  magnificent  impudence  of  Shrigani  and 
Scapin,  the  high-bred  wickedness  of  the  Du^ 
de  Septmonts,  the  hungry  and  tattered  hero^ 
ism  of  Gringoire,  the  colossal  hypocrisy  of 


2 1 0       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

Tartuife,  the  beautiful  and  touching  human- 
ity of  the  old  schoolmaster  in  *  Les  Rant- 
zau/  It  is  known  that  for  him  excellence 
is  unattainable  save  by  means  O'f  discipline: 
that  there  is  only  one  way  to  true  eminence 
in  art,  and  that  way  is  through  training  and 
work;  and  his  achievement  is  a  proof  that 
he  is  right.  Macready,  as  we  know,  thought 
otherwise,  and  most  Englishmen  think  with 
Macready.  I  confess  that  on  this  point  I 
prefer  the  authority  of  Coquelin,  whose  ex- 
ample, as  it  seems  tO'  me,  is  a  good  deal 
more  respectable  than  Macready's  own.  So 
far  as  I  can  gather,  Macready  (like  Mr. 
Irving)  was  always  himself  and  nothing 
else;  Coquelin  (like  Salvini,  though  of 
course  upon  a  lower  level)  is  only  himself 
in  method  and  accomplishment,  and  apart 
therefrom  is  always  the  character  he  happens 
to  have  in  hand.  In  the  Mascarille  of 
*  L'Etourdi '  he  is  a  hero  of  romantic  farce, 
the  citizen  of  an  impossible  and  delightful 


I 


Coquelin  as  ''  Cyrano  de  "Bergerac  ** 

From  painting  by  M.  Guth 


Coquelin  2 1 1 

community,  the  exemplar  of  an  impossible 
and  delightful  immorality,  the  sublimation 
of  an  impossible  and  delightful  theory  of 
humorous  adventure;  in  the  Vadius  of  '  Les 
Femmes  Savantes  '  he  is  only  an  incarnation 
of  angry  pedantry;  in  the  Septmonts  of 
*  L'Etrangere '  he  is  a  man  of  breeding  to 
the  finger-nails  and  a  blackguard  in  every 
fibre.  These  three  parts  are  a  type  of  his 
whole  achievement.  Whatever  he  does  is 
done  with  such  a  combination  of  art  and 
temperament,  with  so  much  accomplishment 
and  so  much  intelligence  at  once,  as  tO'  stand 
out,  however  good  its  surroundings,  as  a 
perfect  expression  of  histrionics.  I  have  the 
greatest  possible  liking  and  respect  for  the 
rare  and  beautiful  talent  of  M.  Delaunay, 
and  the  greatest  possible  admiration  for  the 
noble,  intellectual,  and  technical  qualities  of 
M.  Got;  but  I  confess  that  wherever  I  have 
seen  these  admirable  artists  in  direct  com- 
petition with  M.  Coquelin  —  in  '  L'Etourdi,' 


212      The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

for  instance,  and  '  Les  Femmes  Savantes  '  — 
I  have  been  obliged,  almost  against  my  will, 
to  prefer  Vadius  to  Trissotin,  and  Mascarille 
to  Lelie.  .  .  .  That  when  these  two  famous 
artists  have  retired  he  will  remain,  for  some 
years  to  come,  the  central  and  sovereign  fig- 
ure of  the  Theatre  Frangais  seems  to  me 
proved  in  advance.'' 

Henley's  article  on  Coquelin  was  written 
long  before  the  actor  had  created  the  part 
of  Cyrano  in  Rostand's  play,  which  may  be 
considered  his  highest  achievement.  In  it  he 
shows  "  in  consummate  perfection,  the  two 
apparently  contradictory  sides  of  his  remark- 
able genius ;  he  is  the  very  type  of  the  Gas- 
con soldier,  full  of  braggadocio  and  fight, 
merry  and  impudent ;  on  the  other  hand  he 
is  a  lover  such  as  the  world  has  never  seen 
before." 


Sarah  Bernhardt  213 


SARAH    BERNHARDT 

"  Madame,  you  were  both  great  and  charming.  I 
am  an  old  combatant,  but  at  the  moment  when  the 
enchanted  people  were  applauding  you,  I  confess  that 
I  wept."  Victor  Hugo  to  Sarah  Bernhardt. 

When  the  young  Sarah  Bernhardt  ap- 
peared as  a  candidate  for  admission  to  the 
Paris  Conservatoire  before  the  jury  of  that 
august  institution,  she  recited,  instead  of  the 
customary  selection  from  Corneille  or  Ra- 
cine, a  fable  of  La  Fontaine's  entitled  "  The 
Two  Pigeons,"  with  such  effect  that  she 
was  at  once  accepted  as  a  pupil. 

One  of  the  actress's  finest  performances  is 
the  part  of  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  in  Scribe 
and  Legouve's  drama  of  that  name,  in  the 
second  act  of  which  Adrienne  recites  to  her 
lover,  Maurice  de  Saxe,  the  same  fable. 
Rachel  was  the  first  impersonator  of 
Adrienne   Lecouvreur,    and    a    well-known 


2 1 4      The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

English  play-writer,  the  late  Palgrave  Simp- 
son, who  witnessed  her  performance  in  Paris 
in  1849,  h^s  placed  on  record  a  most  inter- 
esting account  of  it,  and  also  of  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt's  rendition  of  the  character  in  London 
in  1880. 

He  begins  with  "  Picture  I.  —  It  is  the 
evening  of  the  14th  April,  1849.  A  vast 
crowd  is  assembled  in  every  part  of  the 
salle  of  the  Theatre  Frangais.  .  .  .  The  oc- 
casion may  well  account  for  the  enormous 
throng:  for  a  new  play  is  to  be  given  for 
the  first  time  by  the  deified  dramatist  of  that 
day,  Eugene  Scribe;  and  the  greatest  actress 
of  the  period,  —  some  will  say  of  all  time,  — 
Rachel,  is  about  to  appear  in  the  principal 
part.  The  play  bears  the  title  of  *  Adrienne 
Lecouvreur/  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  dilate 
upon  the  piece  itself.  The  picture  to  be 
painted  is  that  of  the  actress  alone.  She 
enters  at  last  in  Act  II.  Her  reception  is 
stormily  enthusiastic ;  and  she  smiles  a  faint, 


Sarah  Bernhardt  215 

almost  melancholy,  smile  in  return.  She  is 
studying  the  part  which,  as  Adrienne  Le- 
couvreur,  she  is  about  to  play  on  the  fancied 
stage  beyond  the  stage.  Her  diction  is  sol- 
emn and  impressive,  perhaps  a  little  too 
heavy  for  the  occasion ;  but  this  is  Rachel's 
fault  in  the  lighter  portions  of  many  plays, 
—  notably  in  the  '  Virginie.'  Her  bearing 
and  manner  are  imposing,  and  lay  powerful 
siege  to  the  feelings  of  her  audience.  A 
caviller  might  say  that  they  are  too  imposing 
for  the  situation.  Presently  come  the  scenes 
where  she  meets  her  lover,  Mavirice  de  Saxe 
(unknown  to  her  except  as  a  young  officer 
of  fortune),  on  his  return  to  Paris.  Her 
love  is  displayed  with  wonderful  impetuosity 
and  effect.  It  is  excited  and  feverish.  Her 
passion  is  almost  tigerish  in  its  demonstra- 
tion. It  is  powerful  in  the  extreme,  but, 
surely,  a  little  in  excess  of  womanly  tender- 
ness. She  recites  the  fable  of  the  *  Two 
Pigeons '  with  admirable  emphasis  and  true 


^  1 6       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

artistic  declamation ;  but  she  is  still  passion- 
ate rather  than  tender.  On  her  return  to  the 
stage,  after  having  received  from  her  lover 
the  missive  which  tells  her  that  he  cannot 
meet  her  that  night,  her  feelings  of  mortifica- 
tion are  expressed  with  less  of  violence,  how- 
ever. She  does  not  seem  to  think  the  scene 
worthy  of  especial  effort. 

"  In  Act  III.  comes  the  second  interview 
with  her  lover,  and  the  discovery  that  the 
supposed  humble  officer  is  in  reality  the  cele- 
brated Comte  de  Saxe.  In  this  scene  there 
is  a  greater  charm  of  womanly  tenderness 
in  her  natural  surprise  than  in  any  of  the 
preceding  scenes.  In  the  interview  which 
follows  when  the  lovers  are  alone,  impulsive 
passion  again  takes  the  place  of  tenderness. 
But  her  power  holds  the  audience  enthralled. 
Is  she  not  the  divinity  of  the  time?  And 
can  divinity  err?  And  yet  it  might  be  fan- 
cied, by  captious  heretics,  that  her  passion 
is  strained  to  discordant  harshness.     Pres- 


Sarah  Bernhardt  217 

ently  comes  the  scene,  the  imbroglio  of 
which  is  so  admirably  conceived  by  the  mas- 
ter of  dramatic  art  in  construction  —  the 
scene  in  which  Adrienne  discovers  that  she 
has  a  rival,  but  a  rival  unknown  to  her  — 
in  the  darkness.  The  incipient  jealousy  of 
the  woman,  who  thinks  she  is  betrayed  by 
her  lover,  is  powerful  without  a  doubt,  but 
almost  fiendish  in  its  expression ;  but  Rachel 
contrives  to  throw  a  marvellous  dignity  into 
the  words,  ' Et  moi,  je  vous  protege'  in  an- 
swer to  the  '  Je  vous  perdrai '  of  the  vindic- 
tive princess ;  and  there  is  an  accent  of  pro- 
found despair  in  her  words,  as  she  sinks  into 
a  chair  at  the  conclusion  of  the  act  — '  Ah! 
Tout  est  £m/  The  curtain  falls  amidst  a 
tumult  of  applause.  In  Act  IV.,  the  scenes 
in  which  the  devoted  woman  sacrifices  her 
fortune  to  save  her  lover  from  arrest  are 
played  with  a  feverish  irritability  which  in 
some  measure  detracts  from  the  sympathy 
which  the  situation  ought  to  create.    But  in 


2 1 8       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

the  scene  where  Adrienne  discovers  her  rival, 
and  considers  the  treachery  of  Maurice  com- 
plete, Rachel  rises  to  her  greatest  height. 
The  verses  from  '  Phedre '  are  declaimed  in 
the  face  of  the  princess,  but  without  moving 
from  the  spot  where  she  stands,  with  so 
grand  a  scorn  that  her  whole  audience  is 
thrilled.  Here  it  is  that  the  actress,  without 
possibility  of  cavil,  is  perfect  in  her  great- 
ness. 

"  The  last  act  comes,  in  which  Adrienne 
is  convinced  in  her  own  mind  of  the  infidelity 
of  her  lover.  But  her  despair  is  alternately 
lugubrious  rather  than  plaintive,  tigerish 
and  fiendish  rather  than  reproachful.  The 
return  of  her  supposed  faithless  lover  is  only 
the  prelude  to  the  death  scene  by  poison. 
That  the  death  is  most  powerful  and  effect- 
ive none  can  deny.  But  it  is  repulsive  in 
its  realism.  .  .  . 

"  Picture  II.  —  The  background  is  now 
the  stage  of  the  Gaiety  Theatre,  London. 


Sarah  Bernhardt  as  ''Adrienne  Lecouvreur 

From  a  photograph 


Sarah  Bernhardt  219 

.  .  .  The  theatre  is  crowded,  for  Sarah 
Bernhardt  is  about  to  appear  for  the  first 
time  in  this  same  play  of  *  Adrienne  Lecou- 
vreur/  and  considerable  curiosity  as  to  the 
result  is  excited.  It  may  be  said  that  fair  play 
is  scarcely  awarded  her  among  the  old  play- 
goers, who  have  already  made  up  their 
minds,  and  loudly  proclaimed  beforehand 
that  *  it  is  utterly  impossible  she  can  be  a 
patch  on  Rachel.'  Let  us  see.  From  the 
very  first,  Sarah  Bernhardt  shows  that  her 
conception  of  the  part  is  entirely  different 
from  that  of  her  celebrated  predecessor. 
How  quickly  and  simply  she  enters,  studying 
her  part.  With  what  a  pleasant  smile  and 
ladylike  grace  does  she  respond  to  the  im- 
portunities of  the  fops  around  her.  With 
what  seductive  tones  of  grateful  affection 
does  she  address  her  devoted  old  friend,  the 
prompter.  Then  comes  her  meeting  with  her 
lover.  The  love-scene  here  is  replete  with 
womanly    tenderness,    springing    from    the 


220       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

heart.  There^  is  no  violence  of  passion ;  and 
although  the  impulse  of  this  loving  woman 
is  strong,  it  is  kept  within  delicate  bounds. 
She  is  sweetly  caressing,  but  not  feverishly 
fiery ;  and  her  fable  of  the  '  Two  Pigeons ' 
is  recited  in  a  strain  more  touching,  even  to 
pathos,  than  strong.  All  is  loving  tender- 
ness, and  not  a  spark  of  this  conception  of 
the  character  is  lost.  Even  at  the  close  of 
the  act,  the  words,  *  Qui  I  je  m'occuperai 
encore  de  lui  —  Vingrat!  ce  sera  la  ma  ven- 
geance! '  are  spoken  with  a  sweet  tenderness, 
only  faintly  tinged  with  the  color  of  re- 
proach. 

"  The  same  conception,  and  the  same  exe- 
cution of  it,  are  continued  in  Act  III.,  in  the 
scenes  where  the  great  general  is  discovered 
in  the  humble  officer,  and  the  lovers  indulge 
in  mutual  protestations.  .  .  .  The  stronger 
and  darker  traits  of  the  feminine  character 
are  not  yet  roused.  The  time,  however,  is 
shortly  to  come.     The  incipient  jealousy  on 


Sarah  Bernhardt  221 

the  discovery  of  her  yet  unknown  rival  is 
admirably  although  delicately  portrayed,  and 
gathers  crescendo  like  distant  rolling  thun- 
der, although  the  storm  does  not  burst  into 
an  explosion.  In  the  famous  phrase,  '  Je 
vous  protege '  alone,  the  actress  is  slightly 
disappointing,  and  yet  the  tone  in  which  it 
is  uttered  is  consistent  with  her  conception 
of  the  part.  It  is  with  a  quiet  dignity  that 
the  words  are  uttered,  not  with  the  thrilling 
force  of  Rachel.  .  .  .  The  '  Tout  est  iini' 
however,  thrills  the  audience.  It  is  a  real 
cri  du  coeur,  although  subdued  and  choking. 
From  this  moment  Sarah  Bernhardt  is  fever- 
ish, excited,  restless,  but  without  querulous 
irritability.  .  .  .  When  she  discovers  her 
rival,  and  has  no  longer  any  doubt  of  her 
lover's  treachery,  Sarah  Bernhardt  is  at  once 
powerful  with  finesse,  and  passionate  with 
subdued  energy.  The  climax  of  the  scene 
alone  may  be  considered  at  once  a  mistake 
and  a  failure,     The  manner  in  which  she 


222       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

advances  across  the  stage  toward  her  de- 
tested rival  and  hurls  the  outrage,  in  the 
words  of  '  Phedre/  into  her  very  face,  with 
outstretched  finger  almost  touching  her,  is 
far  too  overstrained. 

"  In  the  last  act  ample  amends  are  made 
for  the  one  error.  Exquisite  without  exag- 
geration, is  her  despair  at  the  supposed  de- 
sertion of  her  lover,  and  equally  beautiful 
her  revulsion  on  his  return  to  her  arms. 
The  death-scene  follows  —  realistic,  it  is 
true,  but  how  different  from  the  realism  of 
her  great  predecessor.  The  fight  for  life, 
the  despairing  cry,  *  Non  I  je  ne  vent  pas 
mourir,'  are  as  real  as  any  death  scene  ever 
exhibited  on  the  stage,  but  without  repulsive- 
ness." 


Modjeska  223 


MODJESKA 

"The  acting  of  Madame  Modjeska  stands  on  the 
same  high  level  with  the  best  in  literature,  music, 
and  the  fine  arts." 

Charles  de  Kay. 

It  was  as  Adrienne  Lecouvreur  that  Bern- 
hardt first  appeared  in  the  United  States, 
and  it  was  in  the  same  character  that 
Madame  Modjeska  made  her  entry  on  the 
stage  as  an  English-speaking  actress  —  in 
San  Francisco,  in  1877.  She  had  con- 
quered Warsaw  when  she  played  the  part 
on  her  debut  there  long  before. 

A  few  years  after  her  Californian  triumph 
in  Adrienne,  the  beautiful  Polish  actress  es- 
sayed the  heroine  of  "  As  You  Like  It,"  and 
this  part  she  first  performed  in  New  York  in 
1882. 

"  She  studied  the  part  alone,  without  any 
such  assistance  as  she  had  for  Juliet,  and 


224       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

began  to  learn  the  words  when  she  was  about 
starting  for  America.  She  was  then  per- 
fectly familiar  with  Shakespearian  language 
and  wonderfully  at  home  in  the  English 
tongue,  so  that  she  was  able  to  work  out  for 
herself  her  own  idea  of  the  most  delicious  of 
Shakespearian  ladies.  She  had  seen  the  play 
produced  at  the  Imperial  Theatre,  with  Miss 
Litton  as  Rosalind  and  Kyrle  Bellew  as 
Orlando.  Mr.  Bellew's  performance  inter- 
ested her  exceedingly.  When  she  read  the 
play  for  herself  she  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  Orlando  is  never  deceived  by  his  lady- 
love's masquerade,  but  merely  follows  her 
whim  and  lets  her  lead  him  as  she  will. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  Rosalind,  with  her  quick 
wit  and  warm  heart,  is  one  of  the  most 
fascinating  characters  of  the  stage.  Its 
gaiety  and  sweetness  are  the  very  charms 
which  Madame  Modjeska  can  so  well  ex- 
press, and  she  has,  too,  the  light  foot  and 
girlish  figure  which  must  belong  to  Rosalind. 


Modjeska  as  "l^psalind 

From  a  photograph 


Modjeska  ^25 

The  dress  which  she  wears  shows  her  slender 
form  to  admiration.  It  is  made  from  Mr. 
Forbes- Robertson's  beautiful  design,  but  the 
colors  Madame  Modjeska  chose  for  herself. 
Instead  of  the  brown  tints  which  Miss  Litton 
wore,  Madame  Modjeska's  cloak  and  hat  are 
blue.  Perhaps  no  dress  she  has  ever  worn 
has  suited  her  so  well  as  this  picturesque  cos- 
tume, with  its  feathered  hat,  its  doublet,  and 
long,  tight-fitting  boots  of  buff  leather.  The 
wide  blue  velvet  cloak,  which  would  be  a 
source  of  great  distress  to  any  one  at  all 
awkward,  in  the  hands  of  an  experienced 
and  graceful  actress  becomes  a  most  elegant 
and  expressive  part  of  the  costume.  Few 
women  possess  the  bearing  which  becomes 
such  a  dress;  but  Madame  Modjeska  is  one 
of  those  few.  She  can  put  on  to  perfection 
the  pretty  imitation  of  a  *  swashing  and  a 
martial  outside.* 

"  A  Rosalind  whose  '  manly  garb  is  as 
modest  as  it  is  trim  and  picturesque,'  who 


226       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

seizes  upon  the  ideal  part  of  the  character, 
and  who  is  capable  of  detail  which  is  amus- 
ing yet  never  coarse,  cannot  but  win  the 
hearts  of  her  audiences.  But  although  the 
part  is  so  lovable,  so  interesting  in  itself, 
it  requires  a  really  fine  actress.  A  beautiful 
face  and  a  pretty  figure  are  not  sufficient 
qualifications  for  a  Rosalind,  though  some 
have  fancied  so,  and  in  the  hands  even  of  a 
clever  actress  the  whole  impersonation  may 
be  ruined  by  a  touch  of  vulgarity.  We  have 
had  fair  Rosalinds  and  realistic  Rosalinds, 
beauties  and  hoydens,  but  the  public  fully 
appreciates  the  boon  when  an  actress  takes 
the  part  who  is  an  artist  in  spirit,  and  who 
has  read  her  Shakespeare  with  understand- 
ing. 


Adelaide  Neilson  22^ 

ADELAIDE    NEILSON 

"Twice  happy  we,  blest  heirs  of  dual  art; 

To  own  as  mother  tongue  Will  Shakespeare's  writ  — 
To  live  when  kindling  Neilson  voices  it." 

Clarence   Clough   Buel. 

As  Modjeska's  earliest  assumption  of 
Rosalind  was  in  America,  so  Neilson's  first 
performance  of  Viola  was  reserved  for  the 
United  States.  When  she  presented  it  in 
London  in  1878,  a  leading  English  weekly 
paid  it  this  tribute : 

"  There  are  two  conceptions  of  the  char- 
acter of  Viola,  either  of  which  is  defensible. 
There  is  the  sentimental  view,  which  links 
the  character  with  Bellario  or  Euphrasia  in 
the  *  Philaster '  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
and  other  similar  personages  of  the  early 
drama,  and  there  is  the  more  realistic  view, 
which  makes  her  assumption  of  masculine 


228       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

attire  something  of  a  madcap  freak.  The 
latter  view  is  that  taken  by  Miss  Neilson. 
It  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  text.  Viola  falls 
in  love  with  the  duke  in  the  three  months 
during  which  she  is  his  confidante  and  mes- 
senger. It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  love 
for  a  man  she  has  never  seen  could  have  led 
her  to  the  first  assumption  of  masculine 
attire.  The  words,  moreover,  spoken  to  her 
by  Olivia  show  that  she  put  on  with  Rosalind 
a  '  swashing  and  martial  outside.'  Olivia 
charges  her  with  having  been  saucy,  and 
tells  her  she  '  began  rudely.'  Viola's  address 
to  Maria,  '  No,  good  swabber,  I  am  to  hull 
here  a  little  longer,'  affords  no  especial 
proof  of  timidity  of  demeanor.  It  is  only, 
then,  in  her  graver  moments,  and  when  in 
presence  of  her  lord,  that  Viola  shows  the 
sentimental  aspect  of  her  character.  Like  the 
Di  Vernon  of  Scott,  she  can  melt  into  ten- 
derness, but  her  general  mood  is  one  of  al- 
most saucy  defiance.    Miss  Neilson  presents 


•^Adelaide  Neilson  as  '"Viola 

From  a  photograph^ 


Adelaide  Neilson  229 

this  character  to  the  life.  She  has  every 
physical  qualification  for  the  part,  and  looks 
surprisingly  attractive  in  her  Greek  costume. 
She  enjoys  thoroughly  the  confusion  her 
assumption  of  manly  dress  creates,  and  her 
delight  when  she  finds  herself  taken  for  a 
man  by  Olivia  is  infectious.  Not  less  happy 
is  she  in  the  more  serious  passages,  the  grace 
and  delicacy  of  the  play  being,  as  far  as  the 
scenes  in  which  she  appears  are  concerned, 
fully  preserved.  Thus,  though  the  imperson- 
ation may  not  compare  with  the  Juliet,  or 
even  with  the  Rosalind,  of  the  same  actress, 
it  is  distinctly  worthy  of  her  reputation,  both 
as  regards  insight  and  expository  ability." 

A  few  months  before  Adelaide  Neilson's 
sad  and  early  death,  the  writer  saw  her  as 
Viola,  and  finds  this  English  critic's  praise 
far  below  the  worth  of  her  performance.  Mr. 
Henry  A.  Clapp's  appreciation  of  Miss  Neil- 
son's  Viola  is  at  once  more  generous  and 
more  just.     He  speaks  of  her  "  ineffable 


230       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

charm,"  and  her  "  art  that  was  beyond  crit- 
icism," and  ends  with  these  words :  "  In 
that  slender  maid,  as  she  looked  through 
Adelaide  Neilson's  eyes  and  spoke  through 
her  voice,  the  fairest  dream  of  romance 
seemed  incarnate ;  in  her  the  very  '  riches 
of  the  sea,'  strangely  delivered  from  its  *  en- 
raged and  foamy  mouth/  had  *  come  on 
shore.'  " 

MARY   ANDERSON 

"I  have  the  warmest  admiration  and  respect  for 
her  talent."  William  Archer. 

It  is  now  nearly  fifteen  years  since  Mary 
Anderson  retired  from  the  stage,  her  last 
appearance  having  been  as  Perdita  and  Her- 
mione,  in  "  The  Winter's  Tale,"  at  Wash- 
ington, in  the  inauguration  week  of  1889. 
She  was  then  not  yet  thirty,  but  could  look 
back  on  a  lifetime,  almost  half  of  which 
had  been  spent  in  the  theatre,  as  her  debut 


Mary  Anderson  231 

was  made  as  Juliet,  in  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
when  she  was  but  sixteen  years  of  age. 

To  say  how  much  of  Miss  Anderson's 
phenomenal  success  was  due  to  the  personal 
beauty  and  charm  which  she  possessed  in 
such  high  degree,  and  how  much  to  her  his- 
trionic ability,  would  be  a  difficult  task. 

In  private  life,  few  actresses  ever  pos- 
sessed so  many  friends  among  the  noblest 
and  best  minds  of  the  day,  as  Miss  Anderson. 
In  her  own  country.  President  Grant,  Gen- 
eral Sherman,  and  the  poet  Longfellow  were 
especially  kind  and  helpful  to  the  young 
aspirant  for  theatrical  honors,  while  at  a 
later  time,  abroad,  she  gained  the  warm  re- 
gard of  many  among  the  most  distinguished. 

Robert  Browning  was  one  of  these,  and 
Miss  Anderson  tells  an  interesting  anecdote 
about  him :  "  *  Bulwer,*  said  he,  *  asked  me 
to  go  to  hear  him  read  his  new  play,  "  Riche- 
lieu," requesting  that  I  should  take  a  blank 
card  upon  which  to  write  my  criticism.    On 


232       The  Great  Masters  of  the  Drama 

arriving  at  the  place  of  rendezvous  I  found 
Charles  Dickens  and  Thackeray,  if  I  remem- 
ber rightly,  as  well  as  Macready  and  several 
others,  all  similarly  armed  with  paper  and 
pencil.  When  Bulwer  had  finished,  I  imme- 
diately handed  him  my  card  with  ''  A  great 
play!"  written  on  it.  So  you  see  I  was 
the  first  to  pronounce  judgment  on  "  Riche- 
lieu." '  " 

Gladstone,  then  prime  minister,  Miss 
Anderson  met  at  a  breakfast  at  his  house 
in  Downing  Street.  The  meal  was  unpleas- 
antly interrupted  by  the  noise  of  a  loud 
explosion  near  by,  which  was  found  to  be 
caused  by  an  attempt  to  blow  up  the  Ad- 
miralty buildings,  it  being  the  time  of  the 
dynamite  outrages  in  London.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone was  the  only  one  present  who  did  not 
show  the  least  sign  of  alarm. 

The  actress  had  the  rare  privilege,  for  an 
American,  of  visiting  Tennyson  and  accom- 
panying him  on  some  of  his  long  daily  walks, 


Mary  eAnderson  as  "  Parthenia 

From  a  photograph 


Mary  Anderson  233 

and  she  also  heard  the  poet  read  from  his 
own  verses.  She  says  he  never  made  a  ges- 
ture while  reading,  though  tears  sometimes 
ran  down  his  cheeks. 

A  fortunate  woman,  indeed,  was  Miss 
Anderson  —  Victor  Hugo  welcoming  her  in 
Paris  and  kissing  her  hands;  Ristori  dis- 
cussing classic  draperies  with  her;  Alma 
Tadema  designing  costumes  and  scenery  for 
her;  and  Lord  Lytton  and  W.  S.  Gilbert 
writing  plays  for  her,  while  George  Fred- 
erick Watts  painted  her  portrait. 

Our  illustration  of  the  actress  as  Parthenia 
recalls  the  fact  that  when  she  played  it  for 
the  first  time.  John  McCullough  was  the 
Ingomar.  It  was  as  Parthenia  that  the 
actress  chose  to  make  her  bow  before  a  Lon- 
don audience,  at  the  Lyceum,  in  1883. 

THE   END. 


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BERKELEY 

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